Minnesota, Wisconsin Are Now On The Radar For Flash Drought Potential

It has been a wet spring for portions of Minnesota and Wisconsin, with Madison recording roughly 9 inches of precipitation through mid-April alone, so the idea of drought might sound far-fetched right now.

However, forecasters are watching portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois for a weather event that could develop as early as this weekend, and the reason has a name most people haven't heard before: flash drought.

According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, flash drought is not your typical slow-building dry spell. It is the rapid onset or intensification of drought conditions driven by a combination of low precipitation, abnormally high temperatures, high winds, and changes in solar radiation.

This combination of conditions can strip moisture from the soil in a matter of days rather than months, and it's that speed that catches people off guard.

Get our free mobile app

Upper Midwest On The Radar For Flash Drought Potential

Forecasters are now closely watching southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin, along with portions of Iowa and northern Illinois, for potential flash drought conditions.

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center has flagged the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas, for a 40 to 60 percent chance of extreme heat during a three-day window from Saturday, June 6, through Monday, June 8.

The concern is not just the heat itself. It is the combination of heat landing on soils that are already drier than they appear after a stretch of limited rainfall following the wet spring. That is precisely the setup that accelerates flash drought development.

To be clear, no official drought warning or heat advisory has been issued for Minnesota or Wisconsin as of today. What forecasters have issued is an outlook, a signal that conditions are ripe for rapid change if the heat arrives as projected beginning on June 6.

As of May 26, more than 60 percent of the contiguous United States was already in some level of drought, making the Upper Midwest an outlier that forecasters are watching closely.

We Have Seen This Before

Wisconsin residents with long memories may recall the summer of 2023, when conditions followed a nearly identical script.

SEE NOW: Minnesota’s ‘Mushroom House’ aka ‘Flintstone House’ Is Now For Sale

Wisconsin had experienced its wettest start to a year on record through April of that year, only to see flash drought emerge rapidly in June after rainfall stopped and heat moved in. By the end of that June, moderate drought covered most of the state, a big turnaround from no drought just weeks earlier.

The current situation carries echoes of that pattern. The Climate Prediction Center noted that precipitation has been limited across the Upper Midwest over the past several weeks, following that very wet spring, and the latest U.S. Drought Monitor already shows an expansion of abnormally dry conditions across parts of the region.

 A Bigger Pattern Worth Watching

The flash drought concern this week may be just the opening chapter of a longer story. Forecasters say the same period bringing dry, hot conditions to the Upper Midwest is also coinciding with the early development of an El Niño pattern in the Pacific Ocean, one that could grow significantly stronger by the end of 2026.

SEE NOW: Stunning Minnesota Listing On Lake Superior Actually Has Rooftop Pickleball

There is roughly a 50 percent chance the current event develops into a strong or very strong El Niño by late 2026, something forecasters are calling a potential "super El Niño," a pattern that has only occurred four times since 1950.

For Minnesota and Wisconsin, that matters. NOAA notes that El Niño typically brings warmer and drier conditions to northern states, meaning if the current dry stretch deepens rather than breaks, it could set the table for an extended pattern well into fall and winter.

Minnesota DNR climatologist Pete Boulay put it plainly earlier this month: "If you stay dry, it's going to be hard to stay cool."