Warmer temperatures return on Wednesday; a little snow possible late Thursday-Friday

Usually by early February lake effect snow begins to wind down as the Great Lakes ice over, but this hasn’t been the case here in 2020 with virtually all of Lake Superior free of ice (<1% ice coverage as of February 4th) In other words, there is a lot of open water for lake effect clouds/snow showers to develop as long as the air crossing over the lake is cold enough.

Source: https://weather.cod.edu/

Quite a winter storm across the Southern and Central Plains the next few days with even a Blizzard Warning for the Guadalupe and Delaware Mountains in west Texas.

Source: https://www.pivotalweather.com/

National Weather Service Snowfall Forecast ending at Noon Thursday, February 6, 2020.

A swath of about 6 inches of snow is possible from parts of western and northern Texas into east-central Oklahoma.

Source: https://www.pivotalweather.com/

Low temperature forecast for Wednesday morning, February 5th, 2020. Source: https://graphical.weather.gov/

High temperature forecast for Wednesday, February 5th.

Subzero temperatures returned to the Northland this morning.

Low Temperature reports from Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Source: https://www.weather.gov/dlh/

…Weather Summary…

An arctic airmass covered the upper Midwest today, but is already on the way out, story of this winter, any arctic shot has been very brief up to this point. Late Tuesday afternoon 850mb temperatures ranged from -14 to -16C in northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin with temperatures late this afternoon ranging from around 10 to 20 degrees with the coldest temperatures found north of Highway 2 in northern Minnesota.

Clear to partly cloudy skies for tonight and Wednesday as high pressure remains in control of our weather. Another chilly night tonight with lows in the single digits below to single digits above zero. Highs on Wednesday will climb into the 20s. Winds will shift to the southwest with gusts to 20 mph on Wednesday.

Clouds increase on Thursday with some light snow possible later in the day spreading from northwest to southeast across the area. A cold front moving south out of Ontario combined with an area of low pressure moving SE out of the Northern Plains will likely bring at least a little snow to most of the Northland from late Thursday into early Friday with accumulations looking to be in the half inch to two inch range.

Note: There’s another system showing up on model guidance for Sunday, February 9th, but the track of this one has been shifting north/south the last few days, but the trend seems to want to keep most of the snow south of the Northland with just a light dusting of snow possibly impacting southern portions of the area on Sunday (Twin Ports and points south) Stay tuned.

Forecast for Duluth and Superior

.Tonight… Mostly clear. Low 2 below to 3 above zero. Wind west around 10 mph.

.Wednesday… Mostly sunny. Milder. High 23 to 28. Wind southwest 10 to 20 mph.

.Thursday… Increasing cloudiness. Some light snow possible late in the day. High 25 to 30. Wind south 5 to 15 mph.

Thanks for reading!

Tim