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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Significant snow bypasses MSP? Winter solstice Thursday

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Winter is having a hard time digging in across much of Minnesota.

  • MSP hit 38 degrees early today for the official daily high. That's 12 degrees warmer than average.

  • December is running more than 5 degrees warmer than average so far in the Twin Cities.

  • Bare ground: Snow cover is hard to find across southern Minnesota on December 19th.

Snow drought

You can see on the map above that northern Minnesota has decent snow this season. But a snow drought is developing across southern Minnesota. Snowfall deficits in central and southern Minnesota (including the Twin Cities) are running from 5 to more than 10 inches below seasonal averages.

Snowy north and south this week

It's as if somebody put up a force-field around the Twin Cities deflecting inbound snow systems this week. Our two phase system favors northern and southern Minnesota Wednesday and Thursday. The Twin Cities and central Minnesota looks likely to ride the dead zone in between.

NOAA's GFS is similar to other models and captures the finicky nature of the northern and southern snow bands.

12 19 gffer
NOAA GFS via tropical tidbits.

Couple inches

Northern and southern Minnesota still look likely to pick up a couple inches of snow this week. The Twin Cities rides the iffy snow zone in between. The Twin Cities snowfall forecast could still change, but right now I am leaning toward a coating to an inch of so in most of the Twin Cities. Again, NOAA's GFS seems to handle the overall scenario well.

12 19 gfs snow2
NOAA GFS snowfall output via tropical tidbits.

Madison meteor dazzles

Check out this meteor burst from Madison last night.

Winter solstice Thursday

Mark you calendars for 10:28 AM CST Thursday. That's the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.

We'll muster just 8 hours and 47 minutes of daylight in the Twin Cities Thursday. Days start getting longer Friday. Yay.