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Good Thursday morning everyone! We’re tracking a few very light snow showers in portions of Minnesota this morning. Generally, these will not cause to many issues today, and should diminish as we get into the afternoon.
Temperatures will linger in the 30s for much of the area with some 40s in Southern Minnesota and Southern South Dakota today.
The big story will be the system that will begin to produce precipitation for the Western Dakotas this evening. This storm has the potential to produce very heavy snowfall for portions of the region. Here’s a look at the initial wave of precipitation. These showers will generally start out fairly light, and we wouldn’t rule out some freezing rain especially for Southwest North Dakota late this evening. A few slick spots are possible, but generally accumulations will be light. However, by the morning hours, much of the rain will have changed over to snow other than on the far south side of the precip shield where rain/mixed precipitation will occur.
Scattered rain is likely for much of South Dakota on Friday with rain in portions of Central/Eastern South Dakota. Meanwhile snow will fall on the north side of the precipitation swath into much of North Dakota and far Northeast South Dakota. Snow will begin to move into portions of Minnesota in the early afternoon Friday and continue into the overnight hours Saturday. Most snow likely exits ND/SD during the overnight hours Friday, and most of the heavy snow will be east of the area by midday Saturday with lingering snow showers especially for southern portions of Minnesota.
Snow rates could be very heavy at times especially for Eastern North Dakota into Southern Minnesota. Cannot rule out a few areas of 8-12″ of snow, with isolated higher amounts given the amount of frontal forcing, saturation and upward motion in the snow growth zone. The best chance for this is circled on the maps below. The areas in pink on the map on the left and purple on the right likely see 6-10″ of snow and given the consistency and agreement between models, no reason to disagree with the solution right now. It’s important to note that the gradient on the northern edge of snow will be very sharp especially for Minnesota. A small shift in the track could take a city from 6″ to 0 or vice versa very easily. At this point, given the strong Canadian high to the north if any subtle adjustments occur, it’d likely be a slight tug to the south. On the south side of the storm (on the edge of the rain/snow line), a few spots could see freezing rain, with isolated spots up to a 0.05-0.10″. At this point, current indications suggest most ice will be limited to elevated surfaces.
Another system could develop on Sunday into Monday night with additional snow accumulations possible especially for North Dakota and Northern Minnesota.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out! Have a great rest of your Thursday!