Spring Fever Ahead! 50s this week; “Easiest” winter in 25 years?
Warm front pushes into Minnesota today!
Light snowy coating with warm front today
Sun returns late PM
Taste of Spring by Tuesday & again next weekend!
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53+ degrees forecast high on the metro Tuesday
April 5th date when our average high reaches 52 degrees
2" to 8" of snow now on the ground in southern Minnesota
(most will be gone by Friday PM)
31" current snow depth near two Harbors, MN!
129 tornadoes last weekend
274 tornadoes so far this year in USA
(well ahead of last year's pace of 164 through March)
4th warmest winter on record for the Twin Cities
"Easiest" winter in 23 years looking at combined temp & snowfall data
Warm Front Ahead!
Hope you enjoyed the cold start of 16 in the metro and -15 in Ely and Cook, this may be the coldest morning we'll see in Minnesota the rest of this season!
Today may have the look and feel of winter for a while as a warm front pushes in on increasingly blustery winds, but warm air is gushing toward Minnesota for Tuesday. As the warm air pushes in, the "warm advection" will trigger a band of clouds and light snow. A snowy coating will look like winter through Midday today...but will give way to warmer temps by late afternoon as the narrow frontal zone pushes through.
Instant Spring: 50s Tuesday?
Unseasonably mild spring like air gushes into Minnesota Tuesday. The combination of an April like air mass and southerly winds should overcome our snow cover and boost temps to the 50s in southern Minnesota, and probably the metro.
A cold front will slide through Wednesday and temper the warm up with temps peaking near 40 Wednesday and Thursday. But southerly winds will return, and with little or no snow cover in southern Minnesota by Friday PM temps will again soar next weekend.
Look for highs in the 50s again by Saturday.
Yes, there are signs that next week we could see some 60 degree temps in southern Minnesota...and a stray 70 is not out of the question somewhere in southern Minnesota next week!
We'll likely see the first daffodil shoots poking out of the ground in southern Minnesota next week!
Not so fast up north!
It finally looks like winter in "Minnesnowda" today, even if it's only for a few days.
The past two weeks have brought as much as 2 feet of snow to parts of northern Minnesota, a first for this winter.
Gordon Hommes, an NWS weather observer near Two Harbors tells me he's got a full 31" of snow on the ground! That's great news for North Shore Rivers like the Knife River this spring. All that snow will melt, and the runoff will recharge the rivers up north in the next month.
Here are some snowfall totals in Minnesota the past two weeks, since March 19th.
Twin Cities Airport 6.8"
North Metro 14-16"
St. Cloud 11.1"
International Falls 19.6"
Duluth 30.9"
Most of Minnesota has seen more snowfall in the past two weeks than we have all "winter" long!
"Easiest Winter" in 25 years for Minnesota?
This was the 4th warmest meteorological winter (Dec-Feb) on record for the Twin Cities.
With 22.1" of snowfall this season, it's also the least snowy winter since 1986-'87 when we got just 17.4" of snowfall, the 3rd lowest winter snowfall on record.
If you combine temp and snowfall this winter, this winter was very similar to the winter of 1986-'87, which was the 7th warmest on record and the 3rd "least snowy!"
You can go all the way back to the winter of 1930-'31 to find a winter with both lower snowfall and milder temps than this year, but you would be remiss to ignore the winter of 1986-'87... 23 years ago, which was very close to what we've seen & felt in Minnesota this winter.
2012: Year of the tornado again?
There were 129 reported tornadoes in last weekend's devastating tornado outbreak.
That puts the yearly preliminary total at 274 so far according to SPC, the second most active start to a tornado season on record.
That's already well ahead of last year's pace, which turned out to be the 2nd most active tornado year on record with 1,897 tornadoes!
This looks like another active tornado season, but with a fading La Nina there is hope that the storm spawning jet stream will not remain as strong as last spring.
Minnesota had 30 tornadoes last year. Our new 30 year average is 37. Two years ago we set a record and led the nation with 113 tornadoes in Minnesota.
Enjoy the warm up this week!
PH