Waves of moisture into Friday; snow for northern Minnesota
Colder than normal through the weekend
Updated 10 a.m.
The first of multiple rounds of precipitation is moving across the region. We’ll see somewhat of a midday break before more showers develop in southern Minnesota and fill in, moving north. A wintry mix will become mostly snow in northern Minnesota Thursday.
Showers, thunderstorms; wintry mix north
Our latest storm system comes in a few different rounds of moisture. The first round is continuing to move through northern Minnesota and into Wisconsin as a mix of rain, sleet and snow.
We’ll see redevelopment of showers and thunder across southern Minnesota late in the afternoon or evening Wednesday after a midday break overall. That area of redevelopment will fill in Wednesday night into Thursday.
There’s also the potential for ice in portions of northern Minnesota Wednesday night as rain falls and temperatures drop.
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One or two thunderstorms that develop late Wednesday afternoon could have large hail. There’s a marginal risk of severe storms forecast for far southern Minnesota into Wednesday evening.
High temperatures Wednesday will range from near 60 in the southernmost portions of Minnesota to around 50 in the Twin Cities and just 30s in northern Minnesota.
Temperatures overnight Wednesday night will fall below freezing in northern Minnesota, making of icy conditions potentially, while we remain above freezing in southern Minnesota.
Snow develops north Thursday; showers south
We’ll continue to see areas of rain in southern Minnesota overnight Wednesday night into Thursday morning with the wintry, icy mix in northern Minnesota turning over to all snow Thursday.
Snow showers will continue to wrap around the slowly moving storm system into Friday. There will be accumulation across portions of northeastern Minnesota for the second time this week.
We’ll gradually see some sun by late Saturday, with more on Sunday. Temperatures will remain well below normal Friday into the weekend, mainly in the 40s south and 30s north.
We’ll finally see some warmer temperatures early next week but it will still be several degrees below normal.
Heavy precipitation comes as rivers are high
The widespread soaking comes at a critical time with our high rivers. 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent precipitation could fall through Friday over a large area of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The additional precipitation will likely keep cresting rivers at their high levels longer or even push river levels higher. The Mississippi River at St. Paul is expected to reach major flood stage by early Friday. It will go up at least 3 more feet by the weekend.
The St. Croix River at Stillwater is also high and will remain near its crest into early next week:
The Red River continues to rise as snow melts in addition to the latest precipitation. It could go up another 8 feet at Fargo, N.D., into early next week:
