Cooler but still well above normal this week

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The season’s first major winter storm is on the way Friday for most of Minnesota. The storm has been trending north in forecast models since Wednesday afternoon. The latest forecast model runs suggest heavier snow will push further northward into Minnesota including the greater Twin Cities area.

The southern Twin Cities has been added to the 

 have been issued for parts of southwest Minnesota and northern Iowa. You can see the warning zones on the map above.

A deepening low-pressure system will track from Missouri to the south of Chicago by Friday. This system has an open channel to rich moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and a feed of cold subzero air to the north. That’s the perfect recipe for heavy Midwest snow.

NOAA’s NAM 3 km model brings snow into southern Minnesota early Friday morning, and into the Twin Cities during the morning hours. It will likely snow most of the day Friday through Friday night before tapering from west to east early Saturday. The forecast model loop below runs between 6 a.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Saturday. 

Heaviest snowfall across southeast Minnesota

This system will likely produce more than a foot of snow from eastern Iowa through Milwaukee and Chicago. The heaviest snowfall totals in Minnesota will favor southeast Minnesota communities such as Rochester, Albert Lea, Owatonna and Winona. A foot of snow is quite possible in parts of southeast Minnesota. 

The Twin Cities will ride the mercurial northwest edge of the heavier snow zone. A sharp cutoff in snowfall to the northwest means that even a 40-mile shift in storm track will mean a big difference in snowfall totals across the Twin Cities.

Forecast models present a wide range of snowfall possibilities for the greater Twin Cities area. I’ve seen solutions as low as a couple of inches from the European model to nearly a foot of snow from NOAA’s suite of short-range mesoscale models like HRRR, WRF and FV3. 

Right now NOAA’s digital snowfall output looks pretty reasonable to me.

Here’s the wider view for all of Minnesota. 

It should be noted that higher-end solutions crank out heavier snowfall totals for the Twin Cities. Here’s NOAA’s HRRR model.

This storm brings the season’s first transition to deep winter. High winds will cause blowing snow and difficult travel across most of Minnesota. 

The season’s first subzero air mass will push temperatures well below zero this weekend.

Winter weather has finally arrived. The next two weeks are the coldest weeks of the year on average.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

The season’s first significant snowfall is on the way for much of Minnesota. 

Winter storm warning Friday includes southern Twin Cities

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