Area forecast discussion National Weather Service Duluth Minnesota 326 PM CDT Sat may 25 2013 Short term...building ridge aloft continues to allow thinning of middle level cloud mass across the region this afternoon. Some cumulus have also developed as a result of diurnal warming of boundary layer. Temperatures linger in the 40s near Lake Superior with middle to upper 50s common inland. Tonight/Sunday...fairly benign pattern this period as surface/middle level ridging continues to prevail across the Northland. Main change to previous forecast was to slow the arrival time of the next area of clouds and precipitation until Sunday evening. Raised maximum temperatures a little Sunday with more sunshine expected. Long term...Sunday night through Saturday. The extended period is shaping up to be a quite unstable and potentially very wet period...as the upper level pattern evolves from a dry surface high dominated pattern to a mean trough/SW flow pattern. The surface high and upper level ridge will still be battling the advancing moisture Sunday night and into Monday...with dry air to the east with easterly winds...and a moist S/SW flow developing in the plains. This is shaping up to be a notoriously tricky set up...with the potential for mesoscale convective system development. The complexity of frontal boundaries...tracking various upper level impulses that will eject out of the main trough in the western states...and outflow boundary development means that we will need to go with fairly high probability of precipitation for a majority of the remainder of the extended time period...with the precipitation tending to favor the south and eastern portions of the County Warning Area. This wet pattern will hold for the entire extended time frame once it develops as an upper level low moves into the plains along with increasing Gulf moisture. Temperatures will largely be in the 60s and 70s...but it will be cooler near Lake Superior for much of the time. Aviation.../18z taf issuance/ widespread VFR conditions will persist throughout the taf cycle as high pressure to the east battles low pressure to the west. There could be some scattered lower clouds but all in all it looks like like VFR conditions with mainly high to middle clouds. Point temps/pops... dlh 40 62 44 61 / 10 0 10 30 inl 42 69 44 68 / 10 0 20 40 brd 44 63 50 68 / 10 10 30 50 hyr 38 69 46 68 / 10 10 10 40 asx 37 63 43 64 / 0 0 0 30 && Dlh watches/warnings/advisories... Minnesota...none. WI...none. Ls...none. && $$ Short term...Cannon long term....dap