Mild Tuesday; wintry mix early Wednesday
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Look for another mild day Tuesday but with less sunshine and a few isolated light snow showers, with high temperatures in the 30s to near 40 in the south and 20s in the north. Far northwestern Minnesota will stay in the chillier teens.
Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday we’ll see a possible wintry mix of precipitation sweep across central Minnesota.
A bigger storm system heading toward Minnesota Friday night into Saturday will be packed with moisture and energy.
Welcome to meteorological spring!
The southern half of Minnesota slipped just below freezing, but winter’s chill hangs on in the far north. International Falls bottomed out at 6 degrees below zero early Tuesday.
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We’ll see highs back into the 30s to low 40s in southern Minnesota with 20s and even teens in far northwestern Minnesota. There will be more clouds Tuesday than Monday and a few very isolated light snow showers with the second clipper system of the week.
Another clipper brings a wintry mix Tuesday night. The third clipper moves through Tuesday night into early Wednesday bringing a possible wintry mix of some light freezing rain-drizzle.
We’ll also see a coating of snow across much of central Minnesota just before and during the Wednesday morning commute.
Wednesday will bring another day above freezing for the southern half of Minnesota but things cool down statewide Thursday for one day. Highs will be in the 20s south and teens north.
A bigger storm for the weekend
We’re watching a much bigger storm system heading toward Minnesota by Friday night into Saturday. It will be packed with moisture and energy. Right now, that storm is in the Pacific Ocean, so nailing down a precise track is a difficult business.
In typical March fashion, there will be plenty of warm air around, drawn into the storm’s center. Highs likely will be in the 30s and 40s across southeastern Minnesota Saturday.
Because of the warm air, we’re likely looking at a mixed bag of precipitation in southern Minnesota with heavy snow potential in western and northern Minnesota. Any shift in the storm’s low pressure center will alter all of this.
Here’s just one example from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model for midday Saturday:
We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on Saturday’s storm system. Regardless of precipitation type, the storm has the potential to dump 1 to 2 inches of water equivalent.
Old school winter
We finished winter 2021-2022 colder than normal. Keep in mind “normal” is an average over a distinct time period, using the average for 1991-2020. We do this to capture the current, generational climate which of course is much warmer than historically.
Compared to that normal, the Twin Cities was 2.9 degrees below normal, but compared to the historic average, we were only three-tenths of a degree below average.
In other words, this was almost a normal winter historically but has become much less frequent in a warmer climate. It appears this was the 72nd coldest winter (of 149 years) for the Twin Cities.
