Heavy snows aim south, metro rides the edge

The southward storm track trend we saw Wednesday continues. Most all of the major forecast models now suggest a more southerly storm track.

That will focus the heaviest snowfall in southern Minnesota, with a potentially big snowfall range across the Twin Cities from north to south.

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Blizzard warnings continue for most of southern Minnesota. The Twin Cities straddles the line between winter storm warnings and a winter weather advisory.

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Southern track

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Forecast System model has been pretty solid on this system suggesting that the heaviest snows would fall south of the Twin Cities.

The latest tracks edged even farther south, putting the Twin Cities on the razor sharp northern edge of the snow shield into Friday morning.

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NOAA GFS via tropical tidbits.

The heaviest snow bands look to set up squarely over southern Minnesota into Wisconsin. Up to a  foot of snow with locally higher totals, and blizzard conditions will occur in many areas.

If you are thinking about travel later tonight or Friday on Interstate 35 south, Interstate 90 or Interstate 94 east into Wisconsin you may want to reconsider.

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GFS snowfall output via tropical tidbits.

For the Twin Cities, I could easily see a range of little or no snow in the far northwest metro, to 1 to 3 inches in the downtowns, to 3 to 6 inches in the far southeast metro.

If the storm shifts another 30 miles south, snowfall totals in the Twin Cities will fall accordingly. This system still has the potential to miss much of the Twin Cities metro to the south.

Stay tuned.