My best childhood memories are those that include northern Minnesota lakes and holiday weekends with small town parades or festivals. The upcoming weekend is another one of those that will provide life-long memories for someone in your life, especially the young ones. I am especially appreciative to those in my family who introduced me to the "Great Outdoors" and the uniqueness of what Minnesota has to offer. My Grandfather, Vernon H. Nelson, a WWII Veteran and an avid outdoors man (who recently passed away) was always more than happy to bait my hook, net my fish and teach me the filleting secrets. It's hard to let go of family members when they mean so much to you, but I am forever be grateful for every moment I had with him. I hope that I may have the same connection with my children and grandchildren that my grandfather had with me. Ahh... Summer in Minnesota is great!

I am happy to report that the upcoming weekend is looking favorable for fun family get-togthers. There is a slight chance of rain over the holiday weekend, but odds favor a mostly dry and comfortable weekend!The image above shows the long range precipitation outlook from the GFS. Most importantly, it shows a "mainly dry" forecast for the 4th. Great news for parades and BBQ's!

This image shows the 5 day accumulated precipitation from Monday night thru Saturday night. Looking at the upper Midwest, the heaviest precipitation looks to stay southwest of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The latest run only show 0.10" of potential rain in the St. Cloud through Independence Day.

The image above is from the same long range model, but it show numerical outputs: Take a look at the red circles I've provided. It shows the expected high temperatures for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In the green circles, we've got the percent probability of rain. The good news is that for those who like to spend time outdoors over the July 4th holiday weekend, we're not expecting any washouts and certainly nothing like what happened in 1999 in the BWCA.
By the way, this will be the 10th anniversary for the 1999 Boundary Waters Blowdown

Todd's Outlook:

Today: Mix of clouds and sun, still breezy. High: 71

Tonight: Partly cloudy with winds subsiding. comfortable sleeping, open the windows. Low: 54

Wednesday: Mix of clouds and sun, a bit milder. High: 76

Thursday: Partly cloudy, temperatures close to average. High: near 80

Friday: Slight chance of late-day thunder (more numerous storms west). High: 81

Saturday (4th): Morning clouds, risk of a shower. Plenty of sun by afternoon/evening. High: 79

Sunday: Cool, comfortable sunshine most of the day, probably dry. High: 78

Monday: Bright sun, light winds. High: 77