Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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Monday is the beginning of meteorological spring!

 of meteorological seasons vs. astronomical seasons:

If you’re curious about astronomical spring, it begins on March 20 this year. Some of us celebrate the start of spring twice, on March 1 and March 20!

Our average Twin Cities high temperature is 34 degrees on March 1. Our Monday high temp will be about 10 degrees shy of that mark. Monday highs will be in the teens in roughly the northern third of Minnesota, with 20s in central and southern Minnesota plus western Wisconsin. We’ll have plenty of sunshine today.

Upper-level winds are northwesterly, but they become more westerly Tuesday and temperatures will rebound nicely in the afternoon.

Most areas will have Tuesday highs in the 40s:

It’ll be breezy Tuesday, with gusts of 20 to 30 mph in most areas:

Plotted wind gusts are in knots, with  20 knots equal to 23 mph.

Back to temps, Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the mid-40s Wednesday and Thursday, followed by upper 40s on Friday. Highs in the 40s are also expected next weekend.

Above-normal temps could very well linger into the second week of March. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center shows a strong chance of above-normal temps in Minnesota and western Wisconsin from March 8-14:

The outlook is for that entire seven-day period, and a stray cool day cannot be ruled out.

The final stats are in for February. How cold was it? Our average Twin Cities temp for February (the average of all the daily high temps and low temps) was 9.1 degrees below normal:

Snowfall at Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport was 5.9 inches in February — that’s 1.9 inches below our average February snow total in the Twin Cities.

Let’s take a closer look at our Twin Cities February stats. The following chart shows the daily highs in column two and the daily lows in column three. I’ve highlighted the departure from normal (column five) for each day:

We had 16 days in February that were colder than normal. Nine of those cold days were 20 or more degrees below normal. Many of our warmer than normal days in February were less than 10 degrees below normal. 

Our February heating bills will be a bit high, but we did have higher than normal temps in December and January.

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.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Ron Trenda

Author

This first day of meteorological spring will be bright but chilly. Temperatures will rebound Tuesday and we’ll put together a stretch of mild days this week. We have your forecast details, plus a look at just how cold it was in February.

Bright and cool Monday, much milder temps the rest of this week

Go Deeper.

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