Warm in some areas this afternoon; soggy on Monday

If you're waking up to showers this Easter morning, you'll be happy to hear that the weather looks better this afternoon.

The showers will end in most areas before noon. There could be a few lingering showers and an isolated thunderstorm this afternoon in northeastern Minnesota and parts of western Wisconsin.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible this evening and overnight, and Monday will feature periods of rain over much of Minnesota and Wisconsin, with a few embedded t-storms also possible.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale forecast model shows the potential rain pattern Sunday afternoon through Monday evening:

The color chart to the right of the loop refers to the strength of the signal that returns to the radar, not to the amount of rain.

As always, updated weather information can be heard on the Minnesota Public Radio Network, and you’ll also see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

Parts of  Minnesota and western Wisconsin could see substantial rainfall totals on Monday. Here's a summary from the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service:

Temperature trends

Highs in the 50s are expected across most of northern Minnesota this Sunday. There will probably be some 40s near Lake Superior. Much of central Minnesota will top out in the 60s. Highs are expected to reach the 70s in the Twin Cities metro and points south and east.  A few spots, including Mankato, Rochester and Albert Lea could touch 80 degrees. Our average high temp is 61 degrees this time of year in the Twin Cities metro area.

Cooler highs are on tap in most areas on  Monday:

Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the lower 60s on Tuesday, followed by mid to upper 60s Wednesday and Thursday, then lower 60s on Friday.

River levels 

The heavy rains from last Wednesday have caused many river levels to rise. There are numerous flood warnings in effect in Minnesota. You can get flood warning updates by clicking on any location on the National Weather Service Twin Cities website.  Areas with flood warnings are shaded green on the NWS main page; here’s how the map looked Sunday morning:

The latest flood warnings for northwestern Minnesota can be found on the NWS Grand Forks, N.D. site. Here’s how their map looked Sunday morning:

You can click on any location on the NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service  (AHPS) site to get hydrographs of recent and forecast river levels. Some locations list levels in feet above sea level, others list levels in feet above a local reference point.

Here’s the Sunday morning hydrograph for the Mississippi River at St. Paul:

You can see that the Mississippi River at St. Paul is expected to reach it’s new crest on Wednesday. It’ll be well short of its crest on March 31, 2019, which was the seventh-highest on record:

Here’s the Sunday morning hydrograph for the St. Croix River at Stillwater:

Projected river levels are updated on a regular basis, so check back to the AHPS site and the NWS point forecasts for the latest info on the rivers near you. The NWS also posts some flooding details here.

If you’d like to scroll through hydrographs along a certain river, check here.

Hydrographs for the Red River can be found here. The Sunday morning hydrograph for the Red River at Fargo, North Dakota looked like this:

Here’s the Sunday morning hydrograph for the Red River at East Grand Forks, Minnesota:

It's nice to see the downward trend in the river level at East Grand Forks!

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on Minnesota Public Radio at 7:49 a.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:35 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.