Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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Our snow cover has shrunk or disappeared completely in much of the Twin Cities metro area.  Geese and ducks were enjoying this pond at Highland National Golf Course Friday morning:

Parts of Minnesota still have snow cover.  Here’s the Thursday snow cover map from the Minnesota State Climatology Office:

Portions of Lake County and Cook County in northeastern Minnesota have more than one foot of snow on the ground. Some areas just to the west of the Twin Cities metro and in southern Minnesota had four or more inches of snow cover Thursday morning.

Some of the snow cover in southern Minnesota melted Thursday afternoon. This loop of satellite images from late Friday morning shows big gaps in the snow cover in areas near the Minnesota River in southwestern Minnesota:

The white areas in the loop are almost all snow on the ground. There are a few whispy clouds in northwestern South Dakota, but skies were sunny in most areas. The snow cover in northeastern Minnesota doesn’t show up very well on the satellite loop, due to the dark coniferous trees.

We’ll see additional snow melt today and this weekend.

Our average Twin Cities high temperature is 43 degrees on March 20. We’ll top out in the upper 50s to around 60 this Saturday. Most of Minnesota will have highs in the 50s:

Highs in the 40s are possible up along the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Saturday winds will be gusting as high as 25 to 32 mph at times:

Plotted gusts are in knots, with 25 knots equal to about 29 mph.

Wildfire danger will be elevated in many areas Friday afternoon and Saturday:

Back to temperatures, Sunday highs will be in the 50s to around 60 in most areas:

Sunday winds will be highest in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin:

We could see some rain showers at times on Sunday. The rain chance arrives Sunday morning in western Minnesota, with rain chances arriving in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin Sunday afternoon or evening.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential precipitation pattern for the daylight hours of Sunday:

The showers will continue to spread eastward Sunday evening.

Our Twin Cities metro area shower chance will increase by mid-to-late afternoon on Sunday.

You can hear updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the MPR 

, and you’ll see updated weather info on the MPR News 

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

Our temps will be unusually warm this weekend, but the winds will be gusty. We have the forecast details, including the rain chance that arrives on Sunday. Parts of Minnesota still have snow cover; we’ll show you where that snow lingers. 

Weekend forecast: Warmer, with gusty winds

Go Deeper.

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