The coolness of the past several days with negative temperature anomalies in the 1 to 4° range in the past week is being replace by a much warmer and more humid air mass.
The jetstream is now configured in a split-flow (two segments) with the dominate flow zonal across southern Canada which has allowed warmer air to move back into North Dakota and northern Minnesota.
Maximum temperatures are projected in the mid to upper 80s this afternoon across much of the region today.
Not only will it be warm today, but also the beginning of a period of more humid weather, at least for our standards. Dew point today are projected to climb into the low to middle 60s, noticeable, but not “terrible”, but tomorrow the low level atmospheric moisture is expected to be even higher.
It appears that dew points on Saturday could get as high as the lower 70s in the southeastern portion of North Dakota through eastern South Dakota and in many portions of Minnesota. This low level moisture will also keep the minimum temperatures quite high, so expect minimums in the mid to upper 60s with maximums in the 80s for the next several days. In fact, such readings may stick around for the next 6-9 days.
Although widespread thunderstorms on any given day are not expected, there will be some convection firing each day beginning today through at least early next week. Any thunderstorm may develop severe weather characteristics, but over all, not a lot of severe weather is expected, but with dew points so high, any storm that does develop would be capable of producing locally heavy downpours with 1 inch + occurring over a short time frame. But that would be in localized areas.
Overall, a good forecast with plenty of heat units for area crops, but high low level moisture and heavy more dew with increase the risk for fungal development on the down side. No change is foreseen in this overall pattern for the next week. In a word, a stretch of “summer” has arrived.
Daryl Ritchison