Coldest night of winter for parts of Minnesota; warmer weekend ahead

Bundle up, weather fans. This could be the coldest night of the entire winter for parts of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities.

A Groundhog Day arctic front is pumping in another subzero Canadian air mass. Temperatures will crash into the minus 10s in southern Minnesota with minus 20s to minus 30s up north.

I wouldn’t be shocked to see some colder northern Minnesota locations like Embarrass or Kabetogema approach minus 40 early Friday morning.

Wind chill warnings are out for northeastern Minnesota. Wind chills in the minus 40s to near minus 50 degrees will occur overnight into early Friday across northeastern Minnesota.

Including the cities of International Falls, Ely, Isabella, Bigfork, Hibbing, Two Harbors, Silver Bay, Grand Marais, Grand Rapids, Hill City, and Duluth

302 PM CST Thu Feb 2 2023 ...WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS EVENING... ...WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST FRIDAY...

* WHAT...For the Wind Chill Warning, dangerously cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 50 below zero. For the Wind Chill Advisory, very cold wind chills. Wind chills as low as 40 below zero.

* WHERE...Koochiching, North St. Louis, Northern Cook and Lake, North Itasca, Central St. Louis, Southern Lake, Southern Cook, South Itasca, Northern Aitkin and Carlton and South St. Louis Counties. This includes the Tribal Lands of the Grand Portage Reservation, the Mille Lacs Band, Big Sandy Lake area, the Fond du Lac Band and the Bois Forte Band, Nett Lake, Deer Creek and, Lake Vermilion areas.

* WHEN...For the Wind Chill Warning, until noon CST Friday. For the Wind Chill Advisory, until 6 PM CST this evening.

* IMPACTS...The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

Wind chill advisories include the Twin Cities and most of Minnesota from the northwestern through the Iowa border.

Including the cities of Elk River, Cambridge, Center City, Monticello, Minneapolis, Blaine, St Paul, Stillwater, Hutchinson, Gaylord, Chanhassen, Chaska, Victoria, Shakopee, Hastings, St Peter, Le Sueur, Faribault, Red Wing, Mankato, Waseca, Owatonna, Fairmont, Blue Earth, Albert Lea, Osceola, Rice Lake, Ladysmith, Hudson, River Falls, Menomonie, Durand, Chippewa Falls, and Eau Claire

257 PM CST Thu Feb 2 2023

...WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 9 AM CST FRIDAY...

* WHAT...Very cold wind chills expected. Wind chill valuess as low as 35 degrees below zero.

* WHERE...Portions of east central, south central and southeast Minnesota and northwest and west central Wisconsin.

* WHEN...From 6 PM this evening to 9 AM CST Friday. * IMPACTS...The cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 15 minutes.

This will be one of those nights where you could hear trees or the lumber in your roof cracking with loud audible pops as the wood suddenly adjusts to extreme temperatures.

Warmer weekend ahead

This powerful cold snap will be relatively brief. Temperatures will climb rapidly Saturday afternoon. Highs around 30 degrees should reach well into central Minnesota by Saturday.

The warm spell kicks into a higher gear by Monday afternoon. Highs in the upper 30s to near 40 degrees look likely across southern Minnesota.

And check out those 60s down in Missouri. It won’t be that long folks:

Right now it looks like our milder air mass may linger through most of next week. This may be the last subzero night in much of Minnesota for at least a week and possibly much longer.

Twitter changes may affect severe weather warning dissemination

Twitter sent out this tweet Thursday indicating a transition to a paid application programming interface (API) service that would impact automated NOAA and other severe weather warning and information platforms.

This forecaster from NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center picked up on the potential impact of this change. It could impact thousands of National Weather Service and other weather accounts like the Iowa Emergency Management IEMbot project.

It could mean the loss of critical public safety and severe weather warnings for millions of people.

I reached out to Joe Moore with the Duluth NWS office today about this. Like many of us, NWS still doesn’t know the full impact here, but they are watching.

-Hey Paul! Short answer is we don’t know yet! We’ll find out more when Twitter releases more information about the changes.

You can quote that if you’d like! Wish I had an inside scoop but we’re waiting to find out more details just like everyone else.

Remember, you should always have multiple severe weather safety nets and weather sources like NOAA weather radio, wireless emergency alerts on your phone, radio, TV, and other sources.

Stay tuned as we watch how this will, or will not shake out.