3-21-18 Northern Plains: Tracking another system with snowfall potential late this week. B.

Video (6:00):

Good Wednesday morning everyone! 

Some scattered snow showers are lingering in the area this morning. Overall, these won’t have huge impacts, but some additional light accumulation of a coating to a half inch is possible in the Eastern Dakotas into Minnesota. 

Temperatures warm up today into the upper 40s in southern South Dakota, but stay cool for much of the rest of the area. We’ll also see those heavier scattered snow showers continue into the early afternoon, with just an isolated snow shower and scattered flurries into tomorrow morning. 

We do want to watch out for some dense fog tomorrow morning especially in portions of South Dakota. Temperatures will drop near freezing, so freezing fog and a few slick spots are possible especially in low-lying and valley areas. 

The bigger story will be the system that develops late Thursday and into Friday. Precipitation will break out, likely as a mix of rain and light freezing rain for portions of South Dakota on Thursday evening. Overnight Thursday, this precipitation will changeover to snow and it could produce hefty accumulations for portions of North Dakota, far Northeast South Dakota and Southern Minnesota. Snow looks to continue for much of the day in North Dakota on Friday and shift to Minnesota overnight Friday and into Saturday.

The potential for some very heavy snow accumulations is on the table, especially centered over North Dakota. Models are in fairly good agreement of this, with just the European being slightly further north. Going to lean towards the NAM, GFS, CMC consensus for now, but we’ll put out a more detailed snowfall outlook tomorrow and Friday. 

We’re also watching another potential system early next week that has the potential to put down additional rain, snow and mixed precipitation. 

We’ll keep an eye on this system and update on it’s potential later this week. Hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday!