:: All's Well That Ends Well
As written in the last post, the morning MCS debris hung out all day, exasperbated by scattered popups of convective activity...mainly of the showery variety. Overriding cap to the south also kept things at bay as surface front drifted to central MN before a late-afternoon stallout. The frontal movement allowed outflow boundaries to set up a good support system and enough of a dryline near sunset to break the cap south of the MN river valley. Explosive supercells lined up from MKT to RST through the 04Z hour, and started dropping heavy rain and some hail. Wind fields from WSR-88D showed 60kt returns, and some mesocylonic signatures.
Mesonet not showing much of a definative analysis for the frontal positioning, but before dirunal winds died off the 02Z analysis showed the front at about a DLH-STC-RWF line. Tops from the southern MN MCS have spread out over the entire SE 1/4 of MN, including the TC metro, which will serve to usher the frontal movement along with associated cooling. Tomorrow AM we should wake to clear skies and drier air. Seasonal July weather continues in the zonal flow for the next couple days, and there is a hint that enough theta-E advection will give rise to another rain event Friday. Lack of southerly flow to couple with said advection will limit chances however, so next couple model runs may run this solution drier if this doesn't change.
Outlook in models has polar jet going even further north to almost a Yukon position by early next week. Dome of high pressure forms over the great basin and moves over much of the CONUS by late Monday. As the ridge moves off to the east tues-wed, we could see a repeat set up of today with the return of the upper jet to a north-south or "merdianal" flow. Only time will tell...for now we have yet another nice weekend in the forecast, and our gilded summer continues.
THURSDAY...Sunny Skies, High 83. North wind 5-10 mph, low 63.
FRIDAY...Partly Cloudy, High 86. 30% chance of thunderstorms after noon. Low 65
SATURDAY and SUNDAY...Mostly Sunny, Highs in the mid-upper 80's, Lows in the upper 60's.