Where's the snow? How rare is bare ground this time of year?
Breezy weekend; light snow possible northern and central Minn. Sunday
The current season snow tally at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport sits at 18.3 inches. We saw 9.3 inches of that snow total in October!
MSP airport hasn’t recorded a daily snowfall of one inch or more since Nov. 12, so it’s no wonder that we’re seeing bare ground right now. Our current snow drought has been great for people out walking, running or riding bikes. Ski resorts have been making plenty of snow, but cross-country skiers and kids with sleds probably aren’t too happy with this lack of snow cover.
Most of Minnesota has bare ground right now. Here’s the latest snow depth map from the Minnesota State Climatology Office:
You can see some 2 to 4 inch snow depths in northeastern Minnesota, with an embedded stripe of 4 to 8 inches from east-central Lake County into parts of Cook County.
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How rare are these current snow depths? The parts of northwestern and north-central Minnesota that are shaded dark red in the following graphic are in the 1 percent to 5 percent percentile for snow depth right now:
In other words, those areas have had Dec. 10 snow depths that were higher than this on 95 percent to 99 percent of the years in their weather records.
The Twin Cities metro area and most of central and southern Minnesota are in the 5 percent to 20 percent percentile for Dec. 10 snow depth. We see more Dec. 10 snow cover than this in 80 percent to 95 percent of the years in our weather records.
Forecast maps aren’t showing any big snowstorms in Minnesota over the next seven days. Snow lovers will have to be patient.
Accumulating snow in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin
Snow is still falling in much of southern and eastern Iowa plus far southern and eastern Wisconsin. Winter weather advisories continue through Saturday afternoon in the blue-shaded areas:
The Dubuque, Iowa, area is in a winter storm warning.
Far southeastern Minnesota could see a few scattered light snow showers today, but it’s mainly a flurry chance today for Minnesota as well as northwestern and west-central Wisconsin.
You can hear updated weather information on the MPR network, and you’ll see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.
Sunday snow showers north
Periods of light snow showers are possible in northern and central Minnesota plus northwestern Wisconsin on Sunday. Parts of the Twin Cities metro area could see a light shower or a few flurries late Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential precipitation pattern Sunday through Sunday evening:
Temperature trends
Saturday highs will creep into the lower 30s in parts of southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, with 20s in northern Minnesota.
Sunday highs will be similar, with 30s south and 20s to the north:
It’ll be breezy again on Sunday, with gusts of 14-21 mph in many areas:
Plotted values are in knots, with 16 knots equal to about 18 mph. Southeastern Minnesota will see the lightest winds on Sunday.
Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to be in the lower 20s on Monday, followed by mid-20s Tuesday, near 30 on Wednesday and lower 30s Thursday. We could reach the mid-30s on Friday.
Programming note
You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:39 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.