Today’s Video:
Good Friday morning everyone!
We do have some rain/snow showers impacting portions of Northeast Minnesota this morning. Temperatures are just cold enough to support grassy accumulations given a bit of low-level frontal forcing and increased upward motion allowing for heavy precipitation.
We expect this wave to move out of the area throughout the day and as temperatures warm up today snow will begin to melt off in areas that received grassy accumulation. This doesn’t look to impact other portions of the Northern Plains.
High pressure will move in behind this system and bring gusty northerly winds. These will keep temperatures cool today and tomorrow in the Northeast portions of the area, but the high will move off to the east through the weekend and allow warmer south winds to develop in the area.
Perhaps the biggest impact will be on temperatures. Data has consistently trended a bit cooler with low temperatures tonight. With high pressure and calmer winds especially in the East half of the area, temperatures will likely drop low enough to produce frost and freeze risks for the majority of the region.
However, as we get those warmer south winds to work in temperatures will really warm up throughout the weekend and into next week with 70s and even some 80s on the table Sunday and Monday.
However, with this warm up comes rain and potential strong-severe storm risks especially beginning early next week. We could see storms pop as early as late in the day on Sunday and with dry and cold air aloft, hail could certainly occur in some of the stronger storms. The latest CIPS analog guidance shows this risk very nicely mainly focusing on the Western Dakotas.
We will continue to see scattered showers and storms into Tuesday, before better risks for heavier precipitation and more severe storms along the front develop Wednesday and Thursday. The front will push through slowly throughout the week to the south and east and allow southern Minnesota and SE South Dakota to have the best risks at severe weather especially late Wednesday as it looks right now. Note, details on timing and precipitation totals are still being ironed out, but certainly looks like Wednesday/Thursday holds the best risk at this time.
The European and GFS still vary in terms of where the heaviest precipitation will occur and given this is a multi-day event, they will likely continue to bounce around into early next week. It’s something we’re watching carefully but we’re confident that scattered showers and storms will develop early next week.
The good news is we’ll see very nice conditions this weekend with clear skies much of Saturday and Sunday!
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out! Have a great weekend!