Todd's Conservation MN Outlook for the Twin Cities and all of Minnesota

Friday: Blue sky - beautiful! High: 85

Fright night: Clear, full moonlit skies. Watch for northern lights! Low: 62

Saturday: Hazy sun, warmest day of the holiday weekend. Winds: S 10-20. High: 87

Sunday: Unsettled with increasing clouds, chance of a PM shower or T-shower. Winds: W 10-20. High: 82

Memorial Day: Partly sunny, breezy and cooler. Winds: NW 10-20. High: 72 (holding in the 60s north of Little Falls).

Tuesday: Clouds increase during the day, chance of a shower late. High: 74

Wednesday: Chance of thunder, best chance southern MN. High: 75

Thursday: Slight thunder potential. High: 73

Memorial Weekend Weather

Warmest day: Saturday (still looks like the best day for the pool or lake, highs well up into the 80s statewide, winds blowing from the south at 10-20, a little chop on area lakes.

Wettest day: Sunday. I still don't envision an all-day rain, maybe an hour or two of showers (possible thunder) as a cooler front pushes east from the Dakotas. Best chance of a little rain? Late afternoon and evening. Expect highs in the 70s, winds turning to the west by afternoon at 10-20 mph.

Coolest day: Memorial Day. Take a sweatshirt of jacket if you're heading up north. You'll wake up to 40s Monday morning, with highs stuck in the low 60s. Clouds will increase by afternoon, with a stiff northwest wind at 10-20 mph. Not a great day on the lake up north, but metro area lakes should be partly sunny with highs in the 69-73 range. Not a bad day, but not nearly as nice as Saturday to hit the water.

Aurora Alert

This is from www.spaceweather.com "High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading for Earth and it could spark geomagnetic storms when it arrives on May 27th or 28th."

A Fly in the Ointment

The only real threat of not seeing the potential northern lights will be the full moon (flower moon - flowers are now abundant everywhere. It is also known as the full corn planting moon or the milk moon) The additional light from the moon will make any faint colors even harder to see. Good luck out there under those crystal clear skies the next couple of nights.

Record Low April Snow

Winter 2009-2010 was much colder than normal for the United States, and it delivered a string of record-breaking snowstorms that began on the winter solstice.

The snow and cold didn’t linger far into the spring, however. By the end of April, North American snow cover had retreated to the lowest extent in the 1967–2010 record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s April 2010 State of the Climate Report. This map shows percent snow cover across North America in April 2010 based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Percent snow cover ranges from just above zero (light blue) to 100 percent (white). Land areas with no detectable snow cover during the month are gray.

According to NOAA, “Across North America, snow cover for April 2010 was 2.2 million square kilometers below average—the lowest April snow cover extent since satellite records began in 1967 and the largest negative anomaly to occur in the 521 months that satellite measurements are available.” Unusual warmth descended on North America in April, leading to both low snowfall amounts and rapid melt of existing snow.

The Earth Observatory’s Global Maps section provides an animation of monthly, global snow cover from February 2000 to the present.

Have a good Friday and a great weekend - Todd Nelson