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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Still watching next snow and wind system for Thursday and Friday

Forecast models grappling with where the heavy snow zone will eventually land.

Storm potential 2
Storm potential for Thursday and Friday.
Twin Cities National Weather Service

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I’m watching each model run roll in with a little more intense interest this week.

GOES 16 satellite loop
GOES-16 mid-level water vapor satellite loop shows our next storm spinning up over California Tuesday. Yellowish colors are dry air, white and gray represent deeper moisture.
NOAA

The forecast models are still trying to resolve different solutions with our next inbound storm system Thursday and Friday. There are basically two camps of outcomes.

Snow crystal stellar dendrite
Image courtesy of Ken Libbrecht at Cal Tech via snowcrystals.com

Solution #1 Lighter snow for Twin Cities

The first camp of solutions suggests a 2-phase system that will phase up east of Minnesota around the Great Lakes late Thursday. This solution would produce less snow in much of central and southern Minnesota including the Twin Cities area.

NOAA’s latest 18Z NAM 3 km model seems to be trending in the direction of more significant snowfall, but still projects lesser totals for the Twin Cities. Note the split core of heavier snowfall totals north and south of the Twin Cities area.

NOAA NAM snowfall
NOAA NAM snowfall output through Friday.
NOAA via pivotal weather

Solution #2: Heavier snow for Twin Cities

The second camp suggests the system will phase up quicker and produce more widespread significant snow across much of Minnesota into Wisconsin.

NOAA’s latest 18Z GFS model is among those that suggest a quick transition from rain to heavy snow around midday into early afternoon Thursday around the Twin Cities area.

NOAA GFS model Thursday and Friday
NOAA GFS model between 6 AM Thursday and 6 AM Friday.
NOAA via tropical tidbits

This solution would produce a potentially intense burst of snow (and increasing winds) in the Twin Cities and much of southern and eastern Minnesota for several hours Thursday afternoon and evening.

The latest GFS model solutions really ramp up snowfall potential for the Twin Cities and eastern Minnesota.

NOAA GFS snowfall output 2
NOAA GFS snowfall output through Friday.
NOAA via pivotal weather

You can see (as I posted earlier today) the latest 12Z European model is in the middle of the NAM and GFS solutions. The Euro currently projects a narrow band of about six inches of snow running from southwest Minnesota through parts of the Twin Cities into northwest Wisconsin.

European model (ECMWF) snowfall output
European model (ECMWF) snowfall output.
ECMWF via pivotal weather

So there’s still a lot of uncertainty to work out of the forecast for Thursday into Friday. Let’s see what tonight’s late 0Z forecast models do, and how model runs shake out Wednesday. We’re still a good 36 to 42 hours from the heart of this system Thursday.

Stay tuned.