Chilly but bright on Monday; recap of the weekend snowstorm

As expected, it was a drawn-out snowstorm for Minnesota and Wisconsin, lasting from late Friday into Sunday. The final batch of flakes from the storm system swirled over the Twin Cities late Sunday afternoon.

Kids know what to do when we have plenty of fresh snow. Sledders and snowboarders were having fun Sunday afternoon on the sliding hill at Highland National Golf Course in St. Paul:

Snow totals

The final snowstorm tally will become official Sunday evening, but Duluth saw at least 21.7 inches from the weekend storm:

That’s the ninth-highest two-day snow total in Duluth weather records.

The weekend storm total was 4.6 inches at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport through noon on Sunday, with the Sunday afternoon snow total yet to be tallied.

The National Weather Service posts new snow reports on a map as they become available. Here’s how the snow report map looked Sunday evening:

You can hover over any location on the map at the NWS site to see the snow total, plus the location and the time and date of the measurement. Move the slider at the top of the NWS map page to “48 hours” or “72 hours” to make sure that you see reports that arrived early in the weekend.

There were many double-digit weekend snow totals in northern Minnesota, including 20.8 inches just a few miles north of Two Harbors, 15 inches near Moose Lake and 12.5 inches in Brainerd.

Some roads may still have slick spots Sunday night and early Monday. You can check Minnesota road conditions and Wisconsin road conditions.

Rain and snow chances

We need a breather from the snow! Forecast models aren’t showing any big storms this week. Parts of far northern Minnesota could see a passing snow shower late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Forecast System (GFS) model shows this potential precipitation pattern Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning:

November snow

Our thirty-year-average Twin Cities snowfall total for the month of November is 9.3 inches. We shot right by that this November, with 14.2 inches at MSP airport. That’s impressive, since our total was only 1.6 inches over the first 25 days of November 2019. In our previous twelve Novembers, the most snow that we saw at MSP airport was 9.8 inches, in 2010:

Temperature trends

Monday will be the chilliest day of this work week. Many Minnesota and western Wisconsin locations will start the day in the single digits. Monday highs only reach the 20s in most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. We’re shooting for a high in the mid 20s in the Twin Cities metro area, which is well below our average Dec. 2 high of 32 degrees. At least we’ll see the sun!

Tuesday highs rebound to the lower 30s in far southern Minnesota, with 20s to the north:

Wednesday highs reach 30s:

Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the lower 30s and Thursday, followed by mid 20s on Friday.

You can hear updated weather information on the MPR network, and you’ll see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

I hope that you have a good week!