Red Flag Warning Issued for Western and Central Minnesota Counties
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 8, 2026, 3 months ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
A Red Flag Warning is in effect for parts of western, central, and east central Minnesota due to critical fire weather conditions, with strong winds and low humidity expected to cause rapid fire spread.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Red Flag Warning
- Affected area
- Western and Central Minnesota
- Issued
- May 8, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN
Fire-weather notices describe conditions that can support rapid fire spread; they do not report that a fire is present. Check local emergency sources for any active incident.
Record status: historical. It was issued 3 months ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Western and Central Minnesota.
Alert Details
A Red Flag Warning has been issued by the NWS Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN. This alert is for critical fire weather conditions and is effective from 1 PM CDT to 6 PM CDT on May 8, 2026.
Affected Areas
The warning affects portions of central, east central, and west central Minnesota, specifically the following counties: Douglas, Todd, Morrison, Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Stevens, Pope, Stearns, Benton, Sherburne, Lac Qui Parle, Swift, Chippewa, and Kandiyohi.
What You Should Do
Burning is discouraged today as any fires that develop can spread rapidly. Please advise the appropriate officials or fire crews in the field of this Red Flag Warning.
Expected Conditions
Clearing skies and a deep mixing layer will promote increasing wind gusts from 30-35 mph. Relative humidity will be around 20 percent, with northwest winds of 10 to 20 mph and gusts up to 35 mph.
Timeline
The alert is effective from 1 PM CDT to 6 PM CDT on May 8, 2026.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (963 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 8, 2026.
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