Eau Claire, Wisconsin 7 Day Weather Forecast

Wx Forecast - Wx Discussion - Wx Aviation

595
FXUS63 KMPX 060544
AFDMPX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN
1244 AM CDT Sun Jul 6 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Scattered showers and weak storms move through this evening
  along a passing cold front.

- Quiet Sunday followed by multiple chances for storms next
  week.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 238 PM CDT Sat Jul 5 2025

Regional radar imagery shows a broad swath of isolated showers and
weak storms stretching from northern Minnesota all the way to the
southern border and spanning the entirety of the MPX CWA from
western MN to western WI. A weak surface low is positioned over the
MN/WI border south of Hudson WI with a surface cold front stretching
southwest through southern Minnesota and into northwestern Iowa.
This surface front has been the source of a few funnel cloud reports
near Fairmont earlier this afternoon around 1pm, with the key
feature to pay attention to being the NST parameter available on the
SPC Mesoanalysis page as it highlights an area of low level
instability and surface vorticity along the front moving eastwards
into this evening. There was one report of a brief landspout between
Welcome and Fairmont in Martin Co shortly after 1pm, with a lack of
reports since. The main difference between a regular tornado and a
landspout is that a landspout is due to surface vorticity stretching
vertically in the atmosphere towards the base of a strengthening
thunderstorm cloud, which does not allow the rotation to be very
strong and rarely results in damage; compare this to a typical
tornadic thunderstorm which contains a rotating updraft that is the
source of the strong rotation which causes damage. All this is to
say, funnel clouds and landspouts are near-surface features which
rarely cause damage and based on where the environment is favorable
will be too low to see by the MPX radar which is looking roughly
4000 to 5000ft too high to see the feature which is confined to the
lowest 1000ft of the atmosphere.

This threat should diminish as the surface low and cold front move
eastwards this evening, and as we lose our daylight we should see
instability begin to weaken and cap such that no further activity is
expected after sunset. A brief respite from active weather is
expected on Sunday with weak subsidence from zonal upper level flow
and a lack of low level synoptic features will give us partly to
mostly sunny skies and average temperatures. We return to our
regularly scheduled diurnal unsettled pattern next week as each day
appears to have at least some potential for isolated to scattered
showers and thunderstorms as a result of mid-level shortwave
impulses or airmass type forcing due to daytime heating. Global
ensembles show potential for each day this upcoming week for
afternoon activity as temperatures remain near normal in the low to
mid 80s and humidity remains locked in without a significant change
in airmass. There is not a particular day where forcing appears
stronger on a synoptic level, so we will continue to rely on short
to mid range model guidance to highlight the best locations and
timing for thunderstorms throughout the week, which typically will
happen during the 24-48 hour window ahead of time. It isn`t until we
get to Friday to Saturday next week where better synoptic forcing
shows up within the global guidance, with an upper level occluded
trough sweeping across the northern plains sometime between 12z
Friday and 12z Saturday, resulting in the strongest synoptic scale
forcing via CVA with a hint of a low level jet to assist. Until we
get closer, the timing and strength will remain rather ambiguous
and will be shifting with each new model run, however this end of
week system would likely be our best chance at some stronger storms
or heavy rain leading to potential localized flooding.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/...
Issued at 1244 AM CDT Sun Jul 6 2025

A cluster of showers with a few CGs southeast of MKT continues
to sink south. Mid level clouds will dissipate during the next
few hours with clear skies into Sunday. Mid level clouds may
increase again in the afternoon. North winds through the period
remaining less than 10 kts.

KMSP...No concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/
MON...VFR, chc PM -TSRA. Wind SW 5-10kts.
TUE...VFR, slight chc -SHRA/-TSRA. Wind WNW 5-10kts.
WED...VFR. Wind SE 5-10kts.

&&

.MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
MN...None.
WI...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...TDH
AVIATION...Borghoff