Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English

Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Minneapolis, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Minneapolis (MPX) · issued Friday, November 13 at 5:40 AM CST.

Messages

Below normal temperatures through Saturday, warmer next week.

Discussion

Clear skies & calm winds are leading to a chilly night as Canadian high pressure settles over the region. Lows have dropped into the low 20s across much of the area, except across potions of western Wisconsin where stratus coming off of Lake Superior has limited radiational cooling & kept temperatures steady around 30 degrees. The chilly start to the day means we'll see another day where afternoon highs remain in the 30s despite plenty of sunshine, & another cold night is expected with low in the upper teens to low 20s for Sunday morning. Temperatures begin to warm Sunday as southerly flow returns on the backside of departing high pressure. The warmup really commences early next week as upper-levl ridging builds over the central CONUS & ensemble guidance continues to high light temperature anomalies of 15-20 degrees above normal by mid- week. Much of this temperature signal will be felt during the overnight hours with overnight lows expected to remain in the 40s, but we could see some 60s across the area Wednesday & thursday afternoons deepening on the extent of cloud cover. Dry weather continues through at least midweek until a deepening trough over the western US pushes the ridging off to our east. Models are still spread on the strength & track of any disturbances that round the trough & pass through the Upper Midwest, & thus on the extent of precipitation chances for later in the week. While it's hard to pin down exact precipitation chances, we'll be in a more active pattern beginning Thursday & continuing into next weekend so at least some amount of precipitation, likely rain given forecast temperatures, is likely through this period.

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Minneapolis discussion at /o/MPX/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.