Thaw continues; winter storm Friday

Much of Minnesota continues to bask in a January thaw. Temperatures Tuesday were the warmest since Dec. 24, when it was 43 in the Twin Cities.

Highs Wednesday will once again be in the 30s for central Minnesota, 40s far southern Minnesota, but still cooler, with teens and low 20s in far northern Minnesota. One model has the Twin Cities getting close to 40 Wednesday afternoon.

We have a fast moving clipper system swinging through the region late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. That could touch off a mixed bag of light snow, mixed precipitation, and light rain showers.

Temperatures aloft at 1,500 feet will be above freezing while most of us will be below freezing at the surface. This could lead to some icy spots on untreated surfaces early Thursday. Parts of northeastern Minnesota could see a coating to 1 inch of snow. Any accumulations in southern Minnesota will be a spotty dusting to coating.

Friday snow

The big focus is the Friday storm system. The computer models have really come into a decent agreement on the track of this storm now. We’ll be sandwiched between a cold high pressure to the northeast and the milder air to our west.

This will create a swath of heavy snowfall across west-central and southwestern Minnesota.

Totals will drop off moving east and north. Southwestern Minnesota counties are under a winter storm watch for Friday. The Twin Cities area still stands to see a plowable snow, but totals are likely to be under 3 or 4 inches, maybe even less, depending on the cold, dry air to our northeast.

With 48 hours until the storm reaches Minnesota, snow totals and the precise track can still change so stay tuned to the latest information.