4-23-18 Northern Plains: Latest details on rain today into tomorrow… snow mixing in on backside. B.

Today’s Video:

Good Monday morning everyone! 

A storm system is developing to the west in portions of Montana this morning. These showers will continue to gradually work into the area throughout the day today and continue into the overnight hours. 

Dynamic cooling due to strong frontal forcing will drop temperatures to slightly above freezing especially on the backside of this system which could perhaps allow for a changeover to rain/snow mix especially for Western South Dakota overnight tonight. Rain showers will continue for the southern half of North Dakota with scattered rain showers even for Western Minnesota tomorrow morning into tomorrow afternoon. Rain/snow mix could continue into tomorrow but as temperatures heat up during the day, this will become much more isolated before all precipitation exits later tomorrow evening.

Overall, given warm temperatures today, not really expecting accumulation on roadways, but grassy accumulation especially in Northwest South Dakota is certainly possible, but this will even be difficult to come by at first as high temperatures today will likely get near 60. As temperatures warm up tomorrow behind the system any snow on grassy areas will likely melt. Best chance for accumulations will be in higher elevations. 

Regardless of snow, decent rainfall totals are likely with this system. Cannot rule out isolated pockets of 1″ in the Northern half of South Dakota. 

Again, the good news is high pressure will push this system out late Tuesday and allow skies to clear and temperatures to warm back up into the 60s for much of the area on Wednesday after a cooler Tuesday. Temperatures will drop back down below freezing behind this early week system for portions of the area Tuesday night.

Note, Thursday could be a bit cooler as another disturbance works in from the north. Overall, this is looking like a very lackluster system with less than a 0.1″ of rain likely for portions of Minnesota.

Overall, not much precipitation likely other than these two disturbances over the next 7 days: 

Thus, we’ll likely see some sunny days especially as high pressure moves in late Tuesday and into Wednesday.

Wind gusts on Thursday with the disturbance moving in from the north could be quite high at times with up to 35 MPH possible in SW Minnesota and SE South Dakota.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out! Have a great rest of your Monday!