Thaw through Thursday, snow on Friday across much of Minnesota

This looks like our January thaw for Minnesota in 2022.

Temperatures spiked into the 40s in southwestern Minnesota Tuesday afternoon. Worthington hit 44 degrees in the 1 p.m. hour. Several other locations hit at least 40 degrees, including Luverne, Canby, Jackson, Pipestone and Marshall.

In the Twin Cities, temperatures rose overnight as the arctic air mass departed. The temperature at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was 3 degrees around midnight, then rose to 10 by 6 a.m. Then temperatures soared into the 30s just after midday.

High temperatures will remain in the 20s for most of northern Minnesota this week. Highs in the 30s linger across southern Minnesota.

But check out the 40s and 50s just south of Minnesota from South Dakota through Iowa into Nebraska and Kansas. Winter has yet to gain a real, consistent foothold just south of Minnesota this year.

Friday snow track shifting

We’re still on track for significant snow across much of Minnesota Friday. But Tuesday’s forecast models have shifted the storm track significantly southwest.

That would place the heaviest snow totals across southwestern Minnesota, with the Twin Cities riding the eastern edge of plowable snowfall.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Forecast System model is typical of multiple forecast model solutions that now favor the heaviest snows across western and southwestern Minnesota.

It’s still too early to put high confidence in forecast snowfall totals for Friday. But just to give you an idea of how different the forecast model solutions are at this point, let’s look at two different forecast model snowfall output solutions.

First, here’s the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model snowfall output through 6 a.m. Saturday. This is at a 10-to-1 snowfall ratio. Notice how the Twin Cities ride the edge of accumulating snows in this solution:

Clipper snowfall is typically more like 15-to-1 or 20-to-1, so we can assume snowfall totals would be higher in the heavier snow bands across southwestern Minnesota.

Now, here’s NOAA’s GFS model snowfall output. This “Kuchera” method takes the higher snow-to-water ratio into account and lays out a band of 12 inches across western and southwestern Minnesota.

In this scenario, the Twin Cities would ride a snowfall gradient with lighter snows on the northeast side of the Twin Cities and heavier snows in the western Twin Cities:

So the bottom line, most actionable forecast information as of Tuesday is:

• Expect snowfall across much of Minnesota Friday.

• Latest forecast model trends suggest the heaviest snowfall will be across western and southwestern Minnesota.

• Latest forecast trends suggest Twin Cities could ride the edge of heavier snowfall gradient to the west.

Stay tuned as we watch for forecast models changes before the snow flies Friday.