Work week ends mildly; tracking Saturday night snow
Wow! We sure had some over achieving thermometers this afternoon. Let's start with 46 degrees at Fargo, N.D., at 3 p.m. The city's record high for this date is 52 set in 1942.
The high temperature at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport came up a degree shy of 40. Elsewhere in Minnesota, it was a nifty 44 degrees at St. Cloud, but a cloud cover resulted in a high of only 32 degrees at Rochester. Duluth Harbor checked in with 41 degrees this afternoon, where some light freezing drizzle was a concern earlier today.
We have all but erased the 8 degree below normal temperature departure that we accumulated the first couple weeks of January.
This weekend we have hope of a fresh snowfall. A weather system is expected to gain some momentum on Saturday and spread a swath of snow over the state on Saturday night.
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Previously, the models tracked the best chance for 4 inches of accumulation north of the Twin Cities. The last couple of computer runs now favor up to 4 inches of snow south of the Twin Cities by Sunday morning.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Prediction Center paints a region of snow probability from southern Minnesota into southern Wisconsin from Saturday evening through Sunday morning.
The track of the weak surface low is pretty typical of a clipper system. In general the heaviest snow falls to the northeast of the low pressure track.
Most places will likely see 1 to 3 inches of snow from late on Saturday into Sunday morning.
National Weather Service La Crosse, Wis.
Another weak weather system moves across mainly northern Minnesota on Sunday night.
High temperatures expected on Sunday will be in the 20s north and lower to lower to middle 30s south. Pretty good conditions for recreation for January! Hopefully the landscape gets a nice coating of fresh snow.
After a relatively mild start to the work week, with above normal temperatures. An arctic surge may startle us later next week.
As we move through the end of January the Climate Prediction Center has high confidence in cold temperatures from the Great Lakes east.
