Cold, calm Tuesday; major winter storm Wednesday through Friday
Extreme winds will create near-blizzard conditions Thursday and Friday
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Updated 9:15 a.m.
Tuesday will be the cold, calm before the storm. Temperatures will average about 20 degrees below normal. Snow develops Wednesday with significant accumulation and high winds develop by Thursday and Friday along with extreme cold.
Cold and calm Tuesday
It’ll be calm and dry Tuesday with peeks of sunshine, but it will be pretty cold. Morning wind chills will be in the teens below zero east to near 30 below zero in western Minnesota, where there’s a wind chill advisory.
High temperatures will range from single digits below zero in western Minnesota to single digits above zero in eastern Minnesota.
Major storm hits Wednesday into Friday
A significant storm system brings the next round of snow to the southern half of Minnesota Wednesday morning. Snow will persist into Thursday night, although most accumulation will wrap up early Thursday with lighter snow and wind Thursday.
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Significant snowfall accumulations are likely across much of central and northeastern Minnesota and across Wisconsin.
One of the things we’ll have to watch Tuesday is a trend developing in the computer models to split the moisture into a “northern lobe” and “southeast lobe.”
If this trend continues, north central and northeastern Minnesota may end up with the higher totals as well as central and southern Wisconsin (visible in the top two models below). That’s why there’s such a wide range of possible forecast snowfall totals at this point.
Regardless of how much snow falls however, the extreme winds will create the near-blizzard conditions Thursday and Friday.
High winds will also develop Thursday into Friday, creating blizzard conditions since this snow will be a very light variety. Wind gusts could exceed 40-50 mph in southern Minnesota.
It now appears some of the highest wind gusts could occur along the North Shore Thursday and Friday:
The bitter cold, combined with the wind, will create dangerously cold wind chill values Thursday into Saturday as well.
