Bright day for shoveling; storm totals, plus the Saturday forecast
8.5 inches fell at MSP; season's now 3rd snowiest ever for Twin Cities
Updated 8:30 a.m.
The winter storm is moving away Saturday morning, and we’ll have a bright day.
Winds will decrease across Minnesota by Saturday afternoon as the low-pressure system moves away and a high-pressure system approaches from the west.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale (NAM) forecast model shows the potential precipitation pattern from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday:
Snow ends in southeastern Minnesota during the early morning hours, but continues in parts of southern and eastern Wisconsin into Saturday afternoon.
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Minnesota road conditions can be found here. Wisconsin road conditions can be found here.
Storm totals
We’re waking up to sunshine, but we had some impressive snow totals overnight.
The official storm total at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is 8.5 inches:
This now ranks as the third snowiest snow season in Twin Cities weather records:
I measured 8.8 inches of new snow in St. Paul.
Here are some other snow totals received as of 8:30 a.m.:
Monticello (in Wright County), 12 inches
Corcoran (western Hennepin County), 10 inches
Fridley, 9.2 inches
Falcon Heights, 9.6 inches
Plymouth and Brooklyn Park, 9.5 inches
Burnsville, 8.9 inches
Bloomington, Lakeville, Woodbury and Maplewood, 8 inches
Savage, 7.5 inches
South St. Paul, 7 inches
Shakopee, 6.8 inches
West St. Paul, 6.5 inches
Douglas (NW of Rochester), 4 inches
Additional snow reports will be plotted on the National Weather Service snow map here. This is how the NWS snow map looked at 8:30 a.m.:
Many additional snow reports will be arriving this morning. You can pan and zoom the map at the linked site and then hover over any data point to get the exact location and snow total, plus the time of the snow measurement.
If you are measuring snow, it’s best to average as least three measurements in spots with little or no drifting. Don’t measure in areas where the snow may have blown off of a roof.
Cool day
The average Twin Cities high temperature is 50 degrees on April 1. Metro area highs will be in the upper 30s this Saturday.
Most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin will have highs in the 30s on Saturday, with some 20s in northwestern and west-central Minnesota:
Update
A new Updraft will be posted around 10:30 a.m. Saturday. It’ll include a look at Sunday and the week ahead.
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.