Good Saturday afternoon!
A quick check on radar shows we have some cells in SE SD that are trying to work their way into the extreme SW parts of the state:
While the rest of your afternoon and early evening looks dry, we are watching some areas of upper level energy work their ways into the state later tonight and into the overnight hours.The first is the NW portions of MN. This area of storms looks to be very scattered that will work NW to E/SE from this evening until tomorrow around sunrise. The second area is a very broad area that stretches from the SD/MN border down to the MN/IA/WI border area. This area will also hold the potential to see some very widely scattered showers and storms overnight and into the early morning hours tomorrow. This area will likely not see the amount and intensity of storms further North, but the possibility of storms is still present with the passing wave of energy. Here is a simulated loop of that upper level energy from 7 PM CT tonight until 7 AM CT tomorrow:
After this overnight energy works its way out of the state, we should see a bit of a lull in precip during the late morning and early afternoon. Around ~1 PM CT we start to see a shortwave disturbance work its way in from the Dakotas and work NW to SE across the state throughout the afternoon and into the overnight hours. This is not going to be an event where the entire state gets inches, however this looks to be more widespread in coverage than what happens overnight tonight. Here is a loop showing that upper level energy coming into the state tomorrow afternoon and evening from 1 PM CT until 1 AM CT Monday:
Tomorrow throughout the afternoon and evening, our highest chance for strong thunderstorms and severe weather/heaviest rains looks to come in the Central part of MN. This is the area where we have the highest instability, strongest upper level winds, and a strong turning of the winds with height:
Rainfall guidance out until Sunday at 7 PM CT. The values in this image should not be taken for face value, but rather to illustrate that a general 0.50 to 1.00 inches is possible where the rain bands set up with amounts higher where our strongest cells form during Sunday. As mentioned throughout the post, the main concerns tonight comes in the areas circled with widely scattered storm chances. The rest to the rain tomorrow will be focused in the Central part of the state and will continue to work its way S and E as Sunday evening progresses:
As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected] ! Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!