Sunrise 5:51 AM   Sunset 8:25 PM Moonrise 2:20 AM   Moonset 11:16 AM

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FXUS63 KFGF 010718 AFDFGF

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Grand Forks ND 218 AM CDT Wed May 1 2024

KEY MESSAGES

- Periodic bouts of rain continue for the next 7 days, with the next one set to arrive tonight, continuing through Friday.

DISCUSSION
Issued at 218 AM CDT Wed May 1 2024

The current rain event is slowly winding down. Most of its lingering effects will be across northwest Minnesota through mid morning. This brought a widespread rainfall of at least a quarter inch, with a few spots around 0.75 inch just south of the Devils Lake region. The lightest amounts (a few hundredths so far) have been along the Canadian border from Pembina toward Langdon. The surface low at 2 am was located between Bemidji and Park Rapids, pretty close to the position of the 700mb wave.
As this wave lifts into southwest Ontario this morning, the rain will slowly taper off. There will be a bit of break until the next system arrives tonight. During this pause between systems, the big question is whether the sun will show itself.
Current guidance shows that most of the area should see at least a few hours of sun, although it may take most of the day to get to the Lake of the Woods region.

As mentioned above, the next round of rain arrives tonight west of the Red River Valley, covers the entire FA on Thursday, and may linger along/north of the highway 2 corridor Thursday night into Friday. At this time yesterday, it had appeared like there would be two areas of precipitation tonight into Thursday, one over central and eastern North Dakota and the other brushing our west central Minnesota counties. In between these areas, basically from the southern Valley up into northwest Minnesota, it had some interconnected lighter rain. Now it appears the two areas could be more distinct, with not much in between. There may even be some question whether anything will brush our west central Minnesota counties. The most likely area for rain seems to be over central and eastern North Dakota, where the forcing is concentrated around the 700mb low and the upper jet. The NBM probs for 0.25 inches of rain or more reflect this too, showing 70 percent values across the Devils Lake region, tapering to 40 percent across far southeast North Dakota into the adjacent area of west central Minnesota. Probabilities for 0.50 inches or more are around 40 percent for the Devils Lake region.

At this time yesterday, it looked like another round of precipitation was possible across the far southern FA Friday night into Saturday morning. Now this looks less likely, reflected in the precipitation chances dropping to 20 percent across the far southern Valley into west central Minnesota.
Precipitation amounts have scaled back to almost nothing now.
Brief 500mb ridging does inch up into the Northern Plains Sunday into Monday. Should see at least some sun these days with highs in the mid 60s to mid 70s. The next round of precipitation then arrives Monday night and could linger through Wednesday, as a closed 500mb low ejects out into the Northern Plains, and tracks through very slowly. With much better agreement seen in the ensembles for this period, precipitation chances have generally risen to likely chances (60 percent), with about a 50 percent probability for amounts of 0.25 inches or more. If this trend continues, precipitation chances should continue to rise, as should amounts. With these systems, we have generally been seeing widespread 0.25 inches, all the way up to 0.75 inches.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY/
Issued at 1139 PM CDT Tue Apr 30 2024

Ceilings overnight into Wednesday morning will be an issue with most locations dropping or maintaining in the IFR to low end MVFR range. vsbys 3-5Sm in light rain/fog as well hanging on esp Grand Forks to Devils Lake. Overall improvement anticipated once we get past sunrise and can mix down some drier air and clearing line moves more steadily northeast. That is the the thought at least with VFR conditions spreading to most areas Wed aftn.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
ND...None.
MN...None.

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