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