Winter really hangs on up north

A windy remainder of Monday with clearing skies west to east. It’ll be cold overnight Monday night. Expect brighter skies and warmer temperatures Tuesday.

Where winter hangs on

It’s been a bit of a rough April for all of Minnesota but it’s been particularly rough to the north, even where April normally is colder and snowier. It was the northern half of Minnesota that once again saw the most snowfall late Sunday into Monday morning. Grand Marais picked up 7.3 inches with over 6 inches in Finland and 5 inches in Two Harbors.

I know it’s seemed like it’s snowed a lot in the Twin Cities and perhaps in terms of frequency it has, but we haven’t actually seen that much measurable snowfall. We’ve only had 1.6 inches when the normal value to date is 2.5 inches. Much of northern Minnesota has seen two to four times their normal snowfall!

Not only that, while we’ve all been cold, the temperature anomalies (departure from normal) have been colder to the north. So yes, even though of course northern Minnesota should be colder than southern Minnesota in April it’s been 8 to 12 degrees colder than their normal highs compared to 6 to 8 degrees colder than normal in the south.

These combined factors have made for some unusually deep snow to the north. Parts of northeast Minnesota still have 1.5 to 2 feet of snow pack, that’s a lot — even for them in late April. In fact, parts of northeast and northwest Minnesota are seeing snow depth for mid-April in the top 20 percent or even top 5 percent.

Warmer weather and more rain ahead

It’ll be cold tonight as skies clear out and winds lighten up from their blustery conditions of Monday afternoon. Lows will be in the 20s south and just teens north.

High pressure is settling in for a short stay giving us sunshine for the first half of Tuesday before clouds increase already in the afternoon.

The next system brings rain showers Wednesday with more snow to the north.

Beyond that we could see our first 70 in the south Saturday with thunderstorms.