Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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A slew of winter weather warnings and advisories was issued by the Twin Cities and Duluth National Weather Service offices late Friday afternoon for much of Minnesota and Wisconsin. You can see the multi-colored zones on the map at the top of this post.

Our long-advertised weekend slop storm is still on track to impact Minnesota this weekend. The first wave of action starts overnight into Saturday morning. Let’s break down the latest trends and timing on our weekend storm.

It’s a Colorado low that will track toward southeast Minnesota Saturday night. This system comes in two waves. The first lighter wave brings freezing drizzle overnight Friday. The second heavier wave arrives later Saturday afternoon through Saturday night. That’s when the bulk of the snow will fall from western Minnesota through the North Shore. 

NOAA’s NAM 3 km resolution model paints the wide variety of mixed precipitation types across our region through Saturday. 

Many of us will wake to a glaze of ice Saturday morning. Icy accumulations are likely across much of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Much of it will be light less than .10 inch. But heavier ice accumulations of .25 to .50 inch of ice could occur north and east of the greater Twin Cities, especially along Interstate 35 between the Twin Cities and Duluth. 

This will be sloppy, heavy, wet snow across Minnesota. That will reduce snowfall totals to 2 to 5 inches across much of western through central Minnesota. But I still see the potential for a narrow band of heavier snowfall especially as you move toward Duluth and the North Shore. Up to 8 inches looks possible locally in these areas. 

I like the placement of NOAA’s digitally generated snowfall map for Minnesota, but I think we may see some locally higher totals in the heavy snow band by Sunday. 

Rain should change to snow in the Twin Cities Saturday night. We’ll likely see a coating to an inch or 2 of slush, especially in the northern Twin Cities. 

Most forecast models generate .50 to 1 inch of rainfall from the Twin Cities south Saturday night. That could wipe out snow cover, and create some huge puddles in the streets. 

There is enough warmth and instability on the warm side of this system that we may see thunderstorms and a severe weather risk from the Twin Cities southeast Saturday. 

Don’t be surprised to hear thunder from the Twin Cities south and east. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center paints a marginal risk for severe storms into the southeast Twin Cities. A slight risk includes southeast Minnesota.

And there’s even a 5 percent chance for tornadoes in southeast Minnesota — on March 5! If a tornado occurs, it will be the earliest on record in Minnesota, beating the previous record of March 6, 2017. 

Bottom line? Be ready for anything and everything Saturday Minnesota. 

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

Our long-advertised weekend slop storm is still on track to impact Minnesota this weekend. The first wave of action starts overnight into Saturday morning. 

Winter storm and ice storm warnings; wintry mix moves in overnight

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