Chilly end-of-March weather forecast with possible storm

NINA MOINI: Well, can you all believe it that we're almost done with March this year? Kind of flew by, I feel like, this year. And it's going to be April before we know it. And it's been a pretty run-of-the-mill spring in Minnesota so far. We're feeling those milder temperatures. We're also seeing some raindrops and snowflakes across the state here and there. Looks like we might be in for some spring slop and a storm coming this weekend. So for more on that, MPR's Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner is here. Welcome back, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: Hey. My pleasure, Nina. Happy Wednesday. And I love how you said that we're almost done with March. But March might not just be done with us.

NINA MOINI: Ooh. Tell me more.

PAUL HUTTNER: You know, this is an interesting month, because we're kind of living a weather contradiction this month. It's been warm and snowy across Minnesota this March. Let's start with the warm. 6.4 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities, 6 to 10 across the state of Minnesota. So warmer, yes. But these systems have been able to pull in enough cold air to create snow. And it's been snowier than normal across most of the state.

Twin Cities, we've already had 9.5 inches of snow. The monthly average is 8.2. And we may not be done just yet. International Falls, 17 inches above normal snowfall, Nina. And even southern Minnesota-- Rochester, Albert Lea, Austin, that I-90 corridor and those southern counties-- they had 6 to 10 inches of snow last week in that blizzard.

NINA MOINI: Wow. Mm-hmm.

PAUL HUTTNER: I guess the good news is this series of storms is eating away at our drought with this active weather pattern.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. How is our drought situation doing?

PAUL HUTTNER: You know, we're nipping away at it little by little. We've had these systems producing about an inch of moisture. And they've been spread out over the state. So north, central, south, everybody's getting in on it. And we've got another one coming in in the weekend, it looks like.

NINA MOINI: All right. And so rest of this week, is it going to be milder? What are you forecasting?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, a couple of fine spring days. How's that? Early spring days. It's beautiful out there today for March. Sunshine, we're headed to 56 this afternoon in the Twin Cities, mainly 40s up in northern Minnesota. Tomorrow is a gem, sunny. I think we'll hit 62 in the Twin Cities.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: 60s all across southern and western Minnesota and 50s to the north. And then Friday, the warmest day, it looks like, in quite a while-- a mix of clouds, maybe a few scattered showers. But I think we're going to hit 73--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: --in the Twin Cities Friday afternoon, Nina, maybe close to 80 near the Iowa border. It will be brief, and it will be a sharp cutoff. It's going to be cooler north of the Twin Cities on Friday. And there will be snow again in northern Minnesota. The far north will get 1 to 3 inches Friday and Friday night.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it looks like the weekend, right in time for the weekend, it'll get a little messier?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, we need to work on the timing of these storms--

NINA MOINI: Right.

PAUL HUTTNER: --or move the weekend days maybe to Wednesday and Thursday. Look, this looks like a one-two punch. That northern Minnesota system, Friday, Friday night, 1 to 3 inches of snow. And then another low comes into central and southern Minnesota, wave number two. And this one starts with rain in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota Saturday, maybe some snow up to the north, Brainerd, Saint Cloud. And then it changes to snow Saturday night, it looks like.

And the snow could be significant, a few inches of slop, some of the models favoring that snow, mainly north of the Twin Cities and west, from Morris up through Willmar, Saint Cloud, maybe Hinckley, up to Duluth. 2 to 5 inches is what the models are saying right now. The European model, the AIFS, which does incorporate a little bit of AI in it, has 3 to 6 inches in that band. And yeah, so we could see that sloppy snow.

Twin Cities, maybe a couple sloppy inches north, less south, but another 1 to 2 inches of liquid precipitation, Nina, which would be good to help again ease the drought. And we'll see about those snow totals and placement. It's still 72 hours out. There's plenty of time for this to change as we go through the next couple of days.

NINA MOINI: All right. And I've got a note here, Paul, that says, weather observers wanted. How legit is that? What's that about?

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, this is totally legit. The group is called CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain and Hail and Snow observers, right? Leave it to the weather people to come up with a giant acronym.

NINA MOINI: Totally.

PAUL HUTTNER: But the thing is, these-- here's what they do. You get trained, and you report precipitation. You get a rain gauge. You can report hail, snow. And there's hundreds of these people in Minnesota that are doing this, 25,000 worldwide in this group. And it's really critical to help piecing together the storm reporting and helping assess things like drought in our river situations.

So go to cocorahs.org. That's C-O-C-O-R-A-H-S dot org. You can also find this on the Twin Cities National Weather Service site. And they're especially looking for people, Nina, in greater Minnesota, so outside the Twin Cities. So if you've wanted to do that, join CoCoRaHS.

NINA MOINI: Good to know. Thank you so much for stopping by, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That's MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.