Mild temps into next week; rain-snow chance Monday night
Plenty of snow cover for winter fun
The weather will cooperate with the many outdoor events taking place across Minnesota this weekend, including the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s Saturday evening torchlight parade.
If your weekend plans include sledding, cross-country skiing or snowboarding, you’re in luck; the weekly snow depth map from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources shows plenty of snow cover across most of Minnesota.
The official Twin Cities snow depth at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is 10 inches right now. Some spots in southern Scott County, in the southwest metro area, have more than 15 inches of snow cover.
The purple shaded areas from Pine County through northeastern Minnesota have snow depths of 18 inches or more. The light-purple shaded areas in northeastern Minnesota have 24 to 30 inches of snow cover.
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Temperature trends
Our average Twin Cities high temp is 25 degrees this time of year. Many spots in the metro area will have afternoon highs of at least 30 degrees today. Much of western and southern Minnesota and portions of western Wisconsin will also see Saturday highs in the 30s, with 20s elsewhere in Minnesota and in northwestern Wisconsin.
Low temps early Sunday morning will range from 20s in southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities to teens to the north, with a few single-digit lows in far northern Minnesota:
Sunday highs reach the lower 30s in the metro area and far southern Minnesota, with mainly 20s elsewhere:
Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to reach the upper 30s Monday, followed by mid-30s Tuesday, then upper 30s Wednesday and Thursday and lower 30s on Friday.
Temperatures may be a bit above normal next weekend and into the following week, according to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center:
Flake chances stay north this weekend
Parts of far northern Minnesota could see periods of light snow showers Saturday evening and overnight Saturday night.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential precipitation pattern from 5 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday:
Far northwestern Wisconsin could see a few flurries late Saturday night.
You can find updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the Minnesota Public Radio News network, and on the MPR News live weather blog.
Some forecast models show a mix of rain showers and snow showers spreading across Minnesota and western Wisconsin Monday afternoon and evening. We’ll have more info on that later today.
Plenty of snow already
So far this snow season, the official Twin Cities snow total (measured at MSP airport) is 55.5 inches. That’s 24.6 inches higher than our average Twin Cities snow total through this point in our snow season.
This is already our snowiest snow season in the Twin Cities since 2018-2019:
The 30-year average season snowfall total for the Twin Cities is 51.2 inches.
Programming note
You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:39 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.