Finally winter, Thanksgiving storm potential?

Somebody finally kicked the Doppler into November mode.

Our unseasonably mild November is history. The weather maps for the next two weeks look more like the season formerly known as November. Wind chill. Ice on your local pond. Brisk breezes on your face.

A southbound clipper brings plowable snow to Iowa and far southern Minnesota Friday. Be ready for winter driving if you're heading south into Iowa Friday.

In the longer run, I'm watching what could be a very interesting weather situation for Thanksgiving Day into Black Friday. Yes, when the weatherman says "interesting" you may want to take a closer look.

Our overdue November chill and snow is welcome to many who celebrate the season we call winter. For mild weather lovers it's hard to complain. We've just enjoyed what is probably the best summer and fall season of a lifetime.

Weather complaints office is just down the hall. The sign above the door says "open tomorrow."

Friday clipper brings heavy snow to Iowa

And southern Wisconsin. Travelers south along Minnesota Highway 60, Interstate 35 and Interstate 94 need to be ready for out instant winter.

Cold air pouring south in the wake of our departing storm meets an inbound clipper tracking across Iowa Friday. The result? A significant band of moderate to heavy snowfall from Nebraska through Iowa into southern Wisconsin into Michigan. The northern edge of the system clips the I-90 corridor in southern Minnesota with the first accumulating snows of the young winter weather season.

For southern Minnesota flakes may fly as far north as Owatonna and Waseca. I-90 corridor towns like Worthington, Fairmont, Albert Lea and Rochester likely pick up 1 to 3 inches by Friday night.

Weekend cold

The season's coldest air mass so far is finally here. Temperatures across Minnesota stay below freezing most of the weekend. Your local bank thermometer may stagger above the 32 degree mark for a few hours each afternoon.

Temperatures in the upper teens and 20s at night may mean the first (unsafe) ice on your local pond this weekend. Milder highs in the 40s will feel pretty great by Monday and Tuesday. It's all relative, yes?

Thanksgiving storm on the horizon?

Yes, it's still a week out and confidence is low at this point. Keep in mind storm track errors can easily exceed 100 miles this far out. That's the difference between a cold rain and a foot of snow.

That said, two of the more trusty medium-range forecast models continue to paint a strong low pressure system over Minnesota Thanksgiving Day.

Most of the solutions favor the rain snow line (just?) northwest of the Twin Cities, with snow north and west and mostly rain from the metro south and east. Again, it's too far out to be credible, but definitely worth watching.

As we say in the weather biz, stay tuned.