Weather winning streak, next rain Thursday

• 82 degrees high at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Tuesday (exactly average for Aug. 4)

• 58 degrees low temperature at MSP Tuesday morning

• 52 degrees metropolitan area dew point Tuesday afternoon

• 7 consecutive days without measurable rain at MSP

Dry days

There's a reason your lawn is drying up fast this week. Our current weather pattern produces high evaporation rates from soils.

A soil sucking combination of sunny days, highs near 80 degrees, a dry air mass with low dew points in the 40s and 50s, and persistent breezes is pulling about a quarter inch per day from soils across southern Minnesota. That's a quick inch of moisture loss from your lawn in four days.

Starry nights

The dry air mass and clear nights have made for some excellent start gazing. Check out this brilliant photo by Ken Williams who captured a rare proton arc over Lake Superior.

Ken made NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day in the process.

Explanation: The setting had been picked out -- all that was needed was an aurora. And late last August, forecasts predicted that an otherwise beautiful night sky would be lit up with auroral green. Jumping into his truck, the astrophotographer approached his secret site -- but only after a five hour drive across the rural Upper Peninsula of Michigan. What he didn't know was that his luck was just beginning.

While setting up for the image, a proton arc -- a rare type of aurora -- appeared. The red arc lasted only about 15 minutes, but that was long enough to capture in a 30-second exposure. As the name indicates,proton arcs are caused not by electrons but by more massive protons that bombard the Earth's atmosphere following an energetic event on the Sun.

In the featured image, the yellow lights on the horizon are the city lights of Marquette, Michigan, USA. The blue and yellow rocks in the Lake Superior foreground are lit by a LED flashlight. Also captured, to the left of the red proton arc, was the band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Weather winning streak

Our weather winning streak continues Wednesday. The next low pressure wave arrives Thursday with scattered thundershowers across Minnesota.

By late Thursday, more concentrated green blobs start to show up closer to the metropolitan area.

I am beginning to lean more toward the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts solution for rainfall timing.

Scattered thunderstorms spread across northwest Minnesota Wednesday night, western Minnesota Thursday, with a high probability rain event in the metro Thursday night into Friday morning.

The weekend looks a little drier than it did yesterday. Dew points surge Thursday as the system approaches.

Rainfall totals between a half inch and 1 inch look quite possible for much of Minnesota. The best chance for some 1 inch-plus totals favors towns north of the metro. There risk for severe storms is just marginal, and favors southwest Minnesota Thursday.

Model performance on longer range forecasts has been iffy this summer. That said, some of the longer range outlook hints at the potential for a couple of 90 degree days late next week.

Stay tuned.