Is flash flooding a threat in Minnesota and Wisconsin Tuesday into Wednesday?
According to the National Weather Service in Duluth — and NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center — flash flooding is possible with storms potentially training over the same locations. However, the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service is sending out a slightly different message.
Here’s what Duluth NWS forecasters are saying: “Heavy rainfall rates and training storms repeating over and over again will lead to localized flash flooding this afternoon into tonight, with the greatest risk for flash flooding in east-central MN and most of northwest Wisconsin.”
Here’s what Twin Cities NWS forecasters said: “Several high-resolution models depict localized amounts in excess of 3-4”, generally somewhere across east-central Minnesota & northwest Wisconsin. The good news is that these heavy rainfall amounts come mainly from multiple waves of thunderstorms through Wednesday morning, as opposed to thunderstorms training over the same location, which should mitigate the flash flooding potential as water from each wave should have some time to soak into the ground.”
Meanwhile, NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center (WPC) says “widespread convection with heavy rainfall rates of 1-2″/hr are expected, and these storms have a high potential to train SW to NE.” The WPC has an area from Nebraska to the Arrowhead of Minnesota under a slight risk for excessive rain.
Here’s the latest official rainfall forecast from the National Weather Service.
Storms that develop Tuesday afternoon could also be severe, with large hail and damaging winds the main threats. According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC), “robust thunderstorms” are expected to develop in central Minnesota by early afternoon and quickly move east…