A stubbornly active weather pattern will keep severe thunderstorms in the forecast across the Upper Midwest and into the western Great Lakes into Monday.
MINNEAPOLIS — A stormy stretch of summer weather is in the cards for the Upper Midwest into early next week, threatening to ruin outdoor plans and activities.
While a massive ridge of high pressure remains anchored in the West, several weather disturbances are set to ride the northern edge of the ridge, triggering rounds of severe thunderstorms from Montana across the Dakotas and into Minnesota and the western Great Lakes.
(FOX Weather)
Dew points were in the lower 70s across the Dakotas on Saturday morning, signaling an abundance of moisture ready to combine with afternoon heating and atmospheric instability to fuel multiple clusters of thunderstorms capable of large hail, damaging winds, and a couple of tornadoes into Saturday evening.
The storms look to organize further Saturday night, congealing into a line of thunderstorms capable of large hail and damaging wind gusts of 60-70 mph as they sweep across Minnesota and Wisconsin, reaching into Michigan and northern Illinois on Sunday morning. Meanwhile, renewed storms sweep across the Dakotas.
(FOX Weather)
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center so far has covered that area encompassing over 12 million people in a Level 2 out of 5 risk for severe weather on Saturday.
(FOX Weather)
But the general stormy pattern holds into Sunday and Monday, drifting a little farther east following an eastward shift in the steering ridge of high pressure. Sunday’s storm forecast is looking a bit lighter than Saturday’s, but Monday’s severe weather threat renews over a wider area, covering Chicago, Milwaukee, and some of the outer southern neighborhoods of Minneapolis and Green Bay in a Level 2 severe weather threat.
Again, large hail and damaging wind gusts of 60-70 mph are the greatest threats, with an isolated tornado or two possible.