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45 below zero at Cotton, Minnesota Friday; Twin Cities near 20 below this weekend

Core of winter's coldest air arrives this weekend.

Wind chill temperatures Friday afternoon
Wind chill temperatures Friday afternoon
Oklahoma Mesonet

This is what the bottom of winter feels like Minnesota.

The core of winter’s coldest air mas oozes into Minnesota this weekend. The mercury plunged to 45 degrees below zero in Cotton, Minnesota Friday morning. Several locations in northern Minnesota exceeded 40-below.

  • Cotton: minus 45

  • Ely: minus 44

  • Kabetogema : minus 41

Coldest weekend of winter

This weekend will be a few degrees colder than last weekend for most Minnesota locations. Expect more negative 40s up north. The Twin Cities bottomed out at negative 16 last weekend. I think we’ll see minus 20 at MSP Airport this weekend, with minus 20s to near 30 below zero in some of the colder the ‘burbs like Lakeville.

Again, the numbers below seem too conservative for me for northern Minnesota, where lows will likely crater into the negative 30s to negative 40s again this weekend.

Forecast low temperatures Monday morning
Forecast low temperatures Monday morning
NOAA

Record lows for the Twin Cities this weekend are minus 23 for Saturday morning, and minus 25 for Sunday and Monday mornings.

Cold wave breaks next week

The upper air pattern finally kicks the Polar Vortex lobe out of Minnesota next week. By next weekend a Pacific flow pattern mercifully returns to Minnesota.

Upper air forecast map for 6 pm February 20
Upper air forecast map for 6 pm February 20
NOAA

Highs will gradually warm into the teens above zero next week. There are signs of a (sustained?) thaw by the weekend of February 20-21.

NOAA GFS model 16-day temperature outlook for Twin Cities
NOAA GFS model 16-day temperature outlook for Twin Cities
NOAA via Meteostar

Stay warm this weekend. The worst of our winter cold will be behind us in about 5 days.