What the forecast actually says
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Area Forecast Discussions are the real forecasts, written 3 to 4 times daily by NWS meteorologists reading the models and interpreting what they mean for your area. They offer far deeper insight than any weather app, but they're written in dense meteorological shorthand. Plaincast uses Anthropic's Claude to summarize them into plain English, side by side with the annotated original.
Revised in 4 passages since the 6:06 AM discussion. See every revision.
Storms may still impact parts of western WI early this morning, but chances are diminishing.
Heat continues with highs in the low 90s through midweek, but dew points are expected to fall into the 60s this afternoon.
Storm chances return Thursday into Friday.
At 2 AM, the dew point at MSP climbed to 81. This has only happened on a few days in recorded history. Per the Minnesota State Climatology Office, an 81 degree dew point was measured on July 17, 2011; July 18, 2011; July 19, 2011; and July 30, The all-time record is 82 set back on July 19, 2011.
Unimpressive convection continues to fire on the cool side of the +12C isotherm at 700 mb from north central MN into central WI. So far there have been no signs of deeper convection developing that has a chance to form into an organized complex, but that still may happen overnight. Should that happen, WoFS has been indicating perhaps Rusk County being clipped with that activity. However, given the 700 mb temperatures and the K-Index becoming less impressive with time across WI, odds are activity will remain east of even Rusk County. A cold front will pass through this morning and winds will shift northwest and gust this afternoon. Dry air advection will send currently very impressive dew points in the upper 70s to lower 80s down into the 60s this afternoon. Just before midnight, the dew point at even MSP reached 79, which is quite rare. Despite this, heat indices will climb back to 100 across southern/east central MN and parts of western WI as air temperatures rise quickly this morning. Elevated smoke will return from fires in the Pacific Northwest, which may temper highs a bit, but the hot overnight lows expected will give us a decent head start. The drier air this afternoon will also make the air easier to heat, which may offset the increased smoke some.
The trough will largely bypass us to the east early this week. While we'll knock down the dew points and the intensity of the heat some, temperatures are still going to be above normal heading into midweek.
A shortwave trough will round the ridge, centered over the southern Rockies, to the northern Plains Wednesday night and the Upper Midwest Thursday night. There will be a lot of moisture to work with as pwats increase to 2-2.25 inches. Severe weather risk appears negligible due to near moist adiabatic lapse rates, but showers and embedded thunderstorms have the potential to produce heavy rainfall.
Temperatures return to near normal for Friday and the weekend, but there are indications of the heat returning early next week.
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