/Issued 5:40 PM CDT, Thursday, March 22, 2018/
Note: If you have travel plans to western or southern Minnesota Friday afternoon through Saturday morning be prepared for wintry weather with snow and some blowing snow. Poor visibility at times along with snow/slush covered and slippery roads.
Here’s my snowfall potential map for the Friday-Saturday storm. A very tight snowfall gradient, we’ve seen that before! Looks like the heaviest snow will setup west/south of the Twin Cities but if the storm tracks slightly more to the northeast, then heavier snow would impact portions of the Twin Cities metro area Friday night through early Saturday morning.
Source: http://weather.cod.edu
NAM Nest 18z run from March 22, 2018.
Simulated radar forecast starting at 7 AM Friday, ending at 1 PM Saturday.
Snow shows up as blue colors on the map below.
Source: https://weathermodels.com
European model 12z run from March 22, 2018 valid for Monday (7 PM) March 26, 2018.
Weather Synopsis
Skies were partly to mostly cloudy over the area today with high temps in the mid 30s near Lake Superior and in the upper 30s to lower 40s for inland locations.
The return of the monster Hudson Bay high will be the main weather story for the Northland through Saturday — This high will keep a storm from affecting our area. The pressure gradient will tighten up between the near 1050mb high to our north and low pressure of ~1000mb to our southwest — This will lead to increasing east to northeast winds near Lake Superior with wind gusts from 25 to 40 mph from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning.
There’s a chance for some lake effect snow shower development near Lake Superior from late Friday night into Saturday but this shouldn’t amount to much if anything does develop.
As for the storm itself, the majority of the snow should remain west and south of the Northland for Friday through Saturday morning as low pressure heads southeast out of the northern Rockies, reaching Tennessee on Saturday.
A wide range in low temperatures tonight from around zero to 30 degrees! Highs Friday in the upper 20s to around 40, coolest temps near Lake Superior. Highs Saturday in the mid 20s to mid 30s.
Our next system to watch comes on Monday, and this one has a better chance to actually affect northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin as we get rid of the influence of that Hudson Bay high. This doesn’t look like a major storm at this time, but some snow accumulation or mixed rain, sleet and snow is possible across the Northland on Monday, and if this system does hit us, it would be the first real precipitation event we’ve had in Duluth since late February!
Link to road conditions
Minnesota: https://lb.511mn.org//mnlb/winterdriving/routeselect.jsf
Forecast for Duluth and Superior
.Tonight… Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 16 to 21. Wind east at 5 to 15 mph.
.Friday… Becoming windy. Partly to mostly cloudy. High 30 to 34. Wind east to northeast at 10 to 20 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph during the afternoon.
.Saturday… Breezy. Mostly cloudy. Flurries possible. High 25 to 30. Wind east to northeast at 10 to 20 mph with gusts to 30 mph.
Normal temperatures for Friday
High: 37
Low: 20
Sunrise Friday: 7:06 AM CDT
Sunset Friday: 7:26 PM CDT
Tim
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