Blizzard warnings in Northwest Minnesota, winter weather advisories across the state

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The storm headed toward Minnesota is bringing along snow, sleet, ice, wind, rain — and maybe even a little thunder. Weekend travel will be messy and even treacherous at times. 

In general, this winter storm will bring the entire state snow and ice. Most of the state is under either a winter storm warning or winter weather advisory due to the expected impacts.

The winter storm warning is shown in pink, the winter weather advisory in purple, and green areas show potential flood concerns: 

There is a lot of moisture with this system and the freezing temperature line will cut across the state, so that means areas of both heavy rain and snow. It is also a large storm, so impacts are likely from Saturday through Monday night.

Here is the approximate timeline, although slight changes is the temperature could vary precipitation types.

Snow will start to spread across southwest Minnesota overnight Friday and as milder air also pushes in some of this will switch to sleet or freezing rain as it spreads.

By midday Saturday, snow will spread all the way to northern Minnesota.

Into Saturday afternoon, most of southeastern Minnesota with see freezing precipitation turn to rain and the storm is dynamic enough even a rumble of thunder is possible. Northern Minnesota continues to see snow, and central and southwestern Minnesota are most likely to see mixed precipitation.

Highs for Saturday will be mostly in the 30s, and it is central Minnesota that is most likely to be sitting right near freezing, thus the mixed precipitation.

This time frame is when the heaviest precipitation is likely to occur. For northern and western Minnesota, heavy snow piles up, with many seeing accumulations of 6 inches or more, and isolated reports of 12 inches or more are possible.

Here is the forecast snow for the entire storm:

For southeastern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, there will be periods of heavy rain. Central and southwest Minnesota stay on the dividing line of rain and snow, with a little freezing rain also possible.

The center of the storm system looks as though it will slide across southern Minnesota Sunday. 

In the wind flow ahead of the system, milder air funnels into the region. Therefore, Sunday will have a large temperature contrast across the state, from highs in the 20s in the northwest to near 50 in the southeast corner of the state. 

This spreads the freezing rain potential up to northern and western Minnesota by Sunday afternoon. 

Many of those same areas will contend with windy conditions on Sunday, especially the Arrowhead, where wind gusts could top 40 mph. 

Temperatures finally drop back below freezing for most of Minnesota Sunday night as colder air moves in on the backside of the storm. This will change most of the precipitation across the state back to snow, with a few areas of freezing rain still possible. 

For parts of central through southeast Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, Monday is the best chance to see accumulation snow. Right now, it looks like 0-2 inches is possible.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Nicole Mitchell 

Author

The storm headed toward Minnesota is bringing along snow, sleet, ice, wind, rain — and maybe even a little thunder. Weekend travel will be messy and even treacherous at times.

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