Unseasonably mild air mass through Wednesday

Welcome to another near-record warm air mass, Minnesota.

Temperatures Monday afternoon are already in the 60s across much of southern and western Minnesota. You can see the surge of warmth on the temperature map at the top of this post.

The record high for the Twin Cities Monday is 66 degrees set in both 2016 and 2012. As of this post time, we’re rising through the lower 60s in the Twin Cities.

The warm air mass will remain in place into Wednesday. Highs Tuesday will reach the 60s once again in southern Minnesota with 50s north. We’ll likely fall short of the record of 70 degrees in the Twin Cities on Tuesday.

The mild air mass continues into Wednesday.

Big changes later this week

It looks like our warm weather party will be over later this week around Minnesota for a while. Forecast models drive a low-pressure system into our region Thursday, with a chance of rain in southern Minnesota.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Forecast System model suggests a mix of snow with this system, but it is the outlier.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model keeps most of Thursday’s rain south of the Twin Cities across southern Minnesota.

Here’s the Canadian model Thursday.

Stay tuned to see how the models sort out the storm track and the eventual northern extent of the rain shield on Thursday.

Colder air ahead

One thing that seems certain, it’s going to be at least 20 degrees colder over much of Minnesota later this week.

Highs Thursday show colder air filtering in.

By the weekend, even colder air will settle in across Minnesota.

March is running about 13 degrees warmer than normal through the first 11 days. It looks like we’ll trend much closer to normal over the next week.

Stay tuned.