Maximum temperatures on Monday ranged from 67° in Crosby to 96° in Edgeley with several other locations at 95°. The cold front that kept northwestern North Dakota cooler yesterday moved through the entire NDAWN mesonet overnight and temperatures today are expected to be much cooler.
Behind the front, temperatures cooled off into the 30s in many locations, but cloud cover in most locations caused temperatures to rise before sunrise keeping temperatures from reaching from reaching the lowest potential.
The cloud cover that much of North Dakota and northern Minnesota is currently experiencing is associated with an upper-level “disturbance” that will bring abundant cloud cover to much of state with the exception of the far southern portion.
Although there will be some rain especially across northern North Dakota today, it should be very light and scattered.
There has been some rain showing up on area Dopplers this morning, but only the Dickinson NDAWN station has recorded any rainfall through this writing (9:15 AM) and that was only 0.01 inches.
The expectation is for rain totals to stay under 0.10 inches from this event. Higher precipitation totals are expected from a different weather maker tonight into Wednesday morning.
That next rain system will be associated with an area of low pressure that is currently in Colorado. That will move northeasterly into southern South Dakota and southern Minnesota in the next couple of days. The most widespread rain will probably occur in those two states but southeastern North Dakota and west central Minnesota should record at least some rainfall from this event, mainly later tonight into Wednesday morning.
Because the NDAWN mesonet stations will stay on the northern portion of the storm, in other words, the cold side, temperatures will remain on the cooler side, with maximums tomorrow like today mostly in the 60s. But once this storm exits, much warmer air will once again surge into the northern plains.
Temperatures are expected to be 10-20 degrees above average on Saturday statewide and far eastern North Dakota recording similar temperature anomalies on Sunday as the cold front may not move through the Red River Valley until later that day. This will mean maximums in the 80s with a few spots, especially on Saturday in central North Dakota getting close to 90° once again.
Next week looks cooler once again, but by cooler, probably just back to seasonal norms which is currently in the 60s, at least toward the beginning of the week.
Tonight into tomorrow morning looks to be the highest probability for rainfall in the area in the next 7 days, although, there will be some spotty light activity today as previously noted, plus, there may be some hit and miss activity on Sunday as well.
Daryl Ritchison