With that being said, we're still in a drought across much of the state with nearly 8% under an extreme drought. Recent heavy rains have helped the drought situation quite a bit in spots across the state. Some of the biggest surpluses (which aren't many) are showing up in blue in pockets along and north of the Twin Cities and also just east of the metro in western Wisconsin. Thanks to some recent heavy rains parts of the state are now in a surplus over the last 90 days. Some of the heaviest rains will be found across the northern half of the state. Here's the simulated radar from AM Thursday to PM Friday, which show scattered showers possible the region through the end of the week. The best chance of rain will be on Friday with some spots picking up a couple of tenths of an inch of rain. Here's the extended precipitation outlook through next week, which shows limited rainfall across the state.

Note that North Platte, NE could drop to 25F on Saturday! These will be some of the coldest readings of the season so far. Morning lows will dip into the 20s and 30s over the next couple of days with the coldest morning being Saturday with a few more locations dropping into the 20s. The coldest temps will arrive AM Saturday with readings falling into the 20s for some, which would be considered a hard freeze. The National Weather service has issued Frost & Freeze watches & warnings across the Dakotas and parts of western Minnesota in advance of some very chilly weather that will settle in over the next couple nights.

National weather service mn