January puddles: Rain today changes to slushy snow tonight

It’s the coldest week of the year on average in Minnesota. You wouldn’t know it watching precipitation fall as rain across much of our state Monday afternoon.

A low-pressure system in Iowa is pumping moisture into Minnesota. It’s warm enough for rain for most of central and southern Minnesota Monday afternoon. Snow is falling across parts of northern and western Minnesota as of 2 pm this MLK holiday.

Many locations in southern and eastern Minnesota will pick up half an inch of liquid precipitation through Tuesday.

Rain to snow tonight

Rain will change to snow tonight across our region. NOAA’s NAM 3 km model is among those models that change most of the rain over to wet slushy snow by this evening across the Twin Cities and most of Minnesota.

Overall accumulations look light for the Twin Cities and most of southern Minnesota. A light slushy coating is likely for the Twin Cities by Tuesday morning. But a few models suggest there could be 1 to 3 inches of west slush in parts of the Twin Cities by midday Tuesday.

Heavier snowfall will bring several inches of wet snow to northeast Minnesota.

Temperatures will remain around or above freezing around the Twin Cities and southeast Minnesota tonight. But temperatures below freezing just north and west will produce some slick roads.

Bigger storm for southern Minnesota this week

Forecast models are cranking up a more potent snowmaker later this week that’s likely to impact Iowa, southern Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

The Canadian and European models bring this system far enough north to put the Twin Cities on the northern edge of the heavier snow bands for a brief time Wednesday night and Thursday.

It’s looking likely that this will be a major winter storm for areas south and east of the Twin Cities Wednesday night and Thursday. We’ll have to follow the storm track on this one very closely as the week unfolds.

Stay tuned.