Video (5:47):
Good Friday morning! Starting off our day cold but with lots of sunshine. A very busy pattern in terms of snow chances over the next several days, particularly as we go from Saturday night through early next week. Clouds will filter back in this afternoon from west to east as our next disturbance rolls in tonight and through the day Saturday. A few areas of snow showers will be possible tonight (particularly western Dakotas), then we’ll watch a very narrow stronger pulse of snow that will track in from the Dakotas into southwest Minnesota on Saturday. Here is the forecast radar from 5pm MT today to 5pm MT Saturday:
Here is a look at the past 3 runs of the NAM model snowfall accumulation through Saturday, which shows a very narrow swath of accumulations Saturday.
Our next disturbance rolls in Saturday night through Sunday west to east…especially targeting North Dakota and the northern half of Minnesota. This looks to be a decent band of snow.
Here is the snow potential from Saturday night through Sunday…we think a 4-6″ band of snow is possible given high snow ratios, likely near Bismarck.
Looking at frontogenesis aloft (technical term!), this helps us determine banding of precipitation…current data suggests central North Dakota eastward into northern Minnesota will be the main area:
More snow works in Sunday night all the way into Tuesday…this time targeting South Dakota through central Minnesota.
Given the duration of snow early next week, some heavy amounts are possible especially across South Dakota. Here is how much snow the data puts down across the region from tonight through Tuesday evening:
