St. Cloud, MN Weather Forecast

Friday's Rain Somewhat Eased July Rain Shortfall, Heat

St. Cloud didn't get the 4-7 inches that fell in the Minnesota River Valley last Friday (set National Water Prediction Service Minnesota rainfall map date to August 1 and time period to last 2 days), but the 0.67 inch picked up pushed the July rainfall total to 2.82 inches. So, the total rainfall during our shortfall over the past 12 months from August 2025 through July 2026 ended up being the 13th driest Aug-July rainfall in St. Cloud records. The day-long cloudiness dropped the overall July average temperature to 75.1 degrees, tying for the 9th warmest July, instead of being in 8th place (you can find many more details, including how rare really hot summer temperatures have been during the past 25 years, in the July 2026 St. Cloud weather summary).

Rain Potential Limited to Tonight

In order to catch up on the rain shortage, most of Minnesota needs the amount of rain St. Cloud got last Friday about 2-3 times each week for a while.

Unfortunately, note that the largest area of showers and thunderstorms yesterday afternoon and last night was well to our north in the northern half of Saskatchewan and Manitoba with only a few scattered clouds making it into Minnesota (see College of DuPage North America clean infrared satellite loop). However, the major low in central Saskatchewan is expected to move east-southeastward towards southern Manitoba by tomorrow, pulling the cold front through Minnesota tonight. And, there has been a stream uncomfortable dew points in the 60's moving into South Dakota and central North Dakota during Sunday night (see tan areas on the UCAR hourly dew point chart). So, there appears to be a better chance for a relatively narrow band of thunderstorms pushing through Minnesota as the cold front comes through.

The NWS Storm Prediction Center has a category 2 risk of severe thunderstorms from the Iron Range and north central Minnesota to the Red River Valley. In the scattered storms, there will be a chance of straight line damaging winds, large hail, and perhaps a tornado or two. St. Cloud and central Minnesota will have a chance of seeing the leftover storms as they push through overnight. I do have a 50-50 shot at rain (see Day 1 of the NWS WPC quantitative precipitation forecast), but the rainfall potential doesn't appear to be as good as what we had last Friday.

The front may allow lingering thunderstorms either tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon in southern and eastern Minnesota, but we will likely be dry.

Canadian Air to Move In Behind Front

Behind the cold front, much cooler and drier air will push in. Today will have highs in the 80's with uncomfortable humidity, but that will come to an end tonight. High temperatures will likely be in the middle 70's tomorrow and perhaps near 80 on Thursday. When the winds calm down tomorrow night, low temperatures could fall into the 40's for only the second time since late June (see NWS June 2026 daily temperature graph)

More Smoke Issues Behind Cold Front

Unfortunately, parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana immediately behind the cold front were having impacts from the western US fires (see smoke symbol, vertical line with waves, and haze symbol, sideways 8, on yesterday's 4 PM CDT NWS WPC North America zoom-in map). This time, the area air quality indices show that the air from the Washington and Idaho wildfires has smoke near the ground (see red and even purple air quality on the EPA Fire and Smoke map).

I traced the air source for tomorrow into Wednesday and, if these forecasts are correct, central Minnesota could see a period of poor air quality between late tomorrow afternoon into Wednesday morning. However, our air flow will continue to be northwest, so that could sweep the significantly cleaner air from the northern Canadian Provinces into Minnesota (see firesmoke.ca smoke forecast) as Wednesday goes on. At this point, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has no advisories, but I'll be keeping an eye on their updates.

Warmer Air Returns Late Week

Later this work week, the heat will tend to build again in the central Rockies and the High Plains (see orange on the NWS Heat Risk forecast). The risk is merely orange, because the air will be relatively dry. That hot air will try to push into the Dakotas, so highs will likely return to the 80's on Thursday with a shot at approaching 90 degrees on Friday. 

The fire threat will increase as the warmth will come with strong south winds. It will take a while for noticeable humidity levels to return, so that will produce high to extreme fire danger Thursday and Friday.

...With Shower Chances Perhaps Saturday??

The long-range forecasts keep the edge of the hot temperatures nearby, but show a parade of potential low pressure systems moving across the Canadian Prairie Provinces from Saturday well into next week. The first potential storm may approach Minnesota on Saturday, so we could have another very warm day, but there will be an uncertain chance of showers and thunderstorms (see Days 6-7 of the NWS WPC quantitative precipitation forecast). From Sunday into the middle of next week, the west-northwest to east-southeast steering winds will continue to allow storms to produce thunderstorm chances at times. At this point, I will continue the uncertain potential for those storms, and I won't even take a guess whether we will be in hot or cooler air.