:: Now We Need Rain
I was looking around the neighborhood today, and one thing is certain...we need rain! We went through May with only 1.02" of rain...whereas our normal (for the Minneapolis area) is 3.24". The deficit is showing in the browning hues of lawns across suburbia.
Yet another "chance" for Mother Nature to assist us in watering comes through tomorrow and Monday, as a low pressure system that has given some nice soakings to our Dakotan friends out west makes its way into MN. Currently, the associated surface boundary is occluded and on the verge of diffusing. Culprit is a lazy upper jet and a strong ridge of high pressure that is anchored just to our east. Along the front, which is pretty much parked right along the MO river through the Dakotas, late day storms fired in the afternoon heat...they moved little, and are now dissapating rapidly. The outflow boundary gusted out to near Mankato, MN, and just south and east of there with help of the left-front exit region of the mid-upper jet streak, some more convection fired just about sundown. It also is dissapating and sliding SSE.
The Dakota MCS tonight will dissapate and I don't expect much debris moving east towards us for the AM. The front will dissapate as well. The remaining short wave will propogate through the Dakotas tomorrow, giving rise to precip chances for our region. The 00Z GFS model run paints it well on 700MB heights moving across the Red River Valley between 1pm and 7pm Sunday. Simultaneously, both the ETA and GFS plots show a strong theta-E ridge across the Couteu des Praries, and high values throught west-central MN. Precip H20 values and vorticities line up here ask well. It is fair to say convective activity will start here...the question is where will it go? Most data points to NE propogation, which may leave us on the drier side of chances, as I foresee t-storm development along a FFM-ATY line, moving NE.
Another problem with my assesment of the models tonight...NWS-MPXWFO is not exactly jiving. They wrote up reasoning from the 18Z model runs...I am currently ahead of them and not sure what the overnighters are seeing in the cards. Previous thinking by the WFO's was to see the current Dakota frontal/wave dissapate, and stronger shortwave to race in for a more-likely Monday t-storm event. Evidence of such a system remains...but without the congruity, I am going to leave things open until a better look tomorrow. I am more confident about a W-MN event tomorrow than I am about everyone (including early yesterday SPC assesments) think Monday will rock.
SUNDAY... Mostly Sunny, increasing cloudiness, high 85, S wind 5-15, low 62, 40% chc showers late
MONDAY... Partly Cloudy, high 82, SW wind 5-10, 50% chc Thunderstorms by dinnertime? Low 60
TUESDAY... Partly Cloudy, high 83