Drought expands as heat dome limits opportunities for rain

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Well, temperatures are a little cooler today and less humid, but overall warm, dry weather persists for the weekend into next week with sunshine and well above normal temperatures.

[00:00:20]So, the latest drought monitor, not surprisingly, showing drought expanding once again in Minnesota after making a lot of progress this spring. uh much of the drought area expanding that Itaska Cass County area in central Minnesota.

[00:00:32]Uh and then drought persisting through southwestern Minnesota, but abnormally dry areas in yellow really expanding over the last uh week. That's the biggest change from 42 to now 62% of the state. So one and a half times more area here in yellow in that abnormally dry category which now includes the Twin Cities and southeastern Minnesota. Part of the culprit this upper level ridge pattern we've had this uh developing heat dome really dominating central Canada and the north central US. We've got upper level lows in the southwest and one in eastern Canada that's cool air aloft stormy cloudy weather and that's propping up the heat dome here in the central part of the country. So we get this omega block because the Greek letter omega looks like the W and that pattern overall is going to be persisting. It looks like the next couple of weeks it will recede a little bit and expand and recede and expand, but overall a similar pattern of above normal temperatures, drier weather here in the north central US and central Canada, uh with just some fluctuations really more or less over the next two weeks. Uh but as it does recede a little bit, it's going to try to move a little bit further east. That's going to allow some showers and clouds to sneak in to our southwest. Nebraska, South Dakota, but maybe even western Minnesota a beneficiary of that as we head into the weekend. Potentially some DAL showers and thunderstorms, those popup showers and storms that develop during the day.

[00:01:49]But kind of mixed messages from the models. The European model, the most aggressive, it's dumping uh some decent rainfall actually the southwest parts of the state, but you can see the other models not doing that. Uh so we'll see how much that uh grip of dry warm weather really recedes a little bit. But at the surface we've have a high pressure area centered over Lake Superior from Hudson Bay. That front from yesterday has kind of stalled off to the west. It's going to move back towards us again though allowing some of that humidity to move back in. So due points are comfortable today. 40s and 50s for eastern Minnesota. But those muggier due points will move back in here by later in the week and early next week. But that will also bring the chance at least of some of those showers and storms hopefully in western Minnesota. Just a question mark, how far east does that moisture move? But little cooler today, still 10 degrees above normal, mid 80s here, but still low 90s in western Minnesota. And then Friday, we're going to see the warmest temperatures really through the weekend to the north and northwest parts of the state, which sort of counterintuitive, but remember that moisture, that cloud cover, and those showers are coming from the southwest. So that's why far southern and southwestern Minnesota will be the cooler places uh the next few days here with those chances of some showers and thunderstorms. 85 today.

[00:02:57]Yeah, that's still 11 degrees above normal, but a little more comfortable.

[00:03:01]Uh and then we really just stay in the mid to upper 80s here the next several days into next week, which is still 10 degrees above average pretty consistently. Plenty of sunshine though.

[00:03:11]We are going to start to see some of those high and mid-level clouds move in over the weekend from the southwest again as that heat dome sort of eases its grip a little bit. Uh again, Saturday, Sunday, western Minnesota, the chance of some showers and thunder and then maybe we'll see a little bit of that potentially in the Twin Cities and eastern Minnesota by Monday and Tuesday.

[00:03:26]But these stuck patterns are very stubborn and very difficult for the for forecast models to predict their movement. So, we'll see. But at least some isolated and spotty chances at some thunder here as we head into potentially early next week.