Mild Tuesday, an inch of rain Wednesday?

Our next weather maker brings rain to most of Minnesota. But there is also snow in the forecast for parts of Minnesota through this upcoming weekend.

This post looks primarily at rainfall timing, coverage, and totals around Minnesota through Thursday.

First, Tuesday brings another mild day for early November. Highs will be in the 50s south and 40s north again Tuesday under mostly sunny skies with light winds. Tuesday brings one more blissfully quiet, relatievly mild day across Minnesota.

Wet Wednesday

The bulk of the heaviest rainfall with the next system will fall on Wednesday, with lighter totals Thursday and Friday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NAM 3 km resolution model pushes a solid band of rain and snow into Minnesota Wednesday.

It should be noted that this particular model brings snow further south into central Minnesota Wednesday. Most other forecast models confine snow to far northern Minnesota, so that’s a feature we’ll have to watch.

This loop runs between noon Wednesday and midnight Thursday.

An inch of rain?

Many forecast models suggest steady rain most of Wednesday and Wednesday night. The European model is cranking out an inch of precipitation for much of Minnesota by Friday morning.

Snow chances

As I said in my earlier post today, there’s still a good deal of uncertainty about how much snow will fall around Minnesota. The best chance for accumulating snow through Friday favors far northern Minnesota. But it will be cold enough for scattered snow showers in most of Minnesota Friday.

One interesting thing to watch. Forecast models have been shifty on the track of Sunday’s system. A few runs, including the latest (18Z) NOAA GFS model run, pushes the track of Sunday’s Clipper southward with a significant snow zone bracketing the I-94 corridor from Fargo through the Twin Cities.

If this storm track verifies we could see plowable snow around the greater Twin Cities area Saturday night into Sunday.

Stay tuned.