Widely scattered snow and rain showers will continue to move southeast across the Northland tonight and Thursday. A coating to 2 inches of snow accumulation is possible in parts of northern Minnesota through Thursday morning. Note: Probably won’t see any snow accumulation here in Duluth, at least by Lake Superior.
Simulated radar forecast from 7 PM this evening to 7 Pm Thursday.
Source: 18z NAM-WRF model 4.8.2020; https://weathermodels.com/
July like heat continues today across a large portion of the Plains into the southern and parts of the eastern US with Wednesday afternoon temperatures in the mid 80s to mid 90s! Cooler air mass across Canada with temperatures in the 20s this afternoon.
Source: RTMA model; https://www.pivotalweather.com/
Potential for at least some snow continues in parts of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes late this weekend into early next week, but how much snow and where is still uncertain due to a few moving parts (circled areas on map) which the models have to figure out over the next few days.
Source: 12z European ensemble model 4.7.2020; https://weathermodels.com/
Two strong storms through this weekend – The first system rapidly deepens while impacting portions of the northeast US the next few days, while the next system deepens as it lifts NE out of the Southern Plains this weekend
Shown below is the 500mb height anomaly forecast from 7 PM this evening to 7 AM Wednesday, April 15, 2020.
Source: 12z European ensemble model 4.8.2020; https://weathermodels.com/
No changes in the temperature forecast for next week as it still looks chilly! Looking at potential for daytime highs in the mid 20s to mid 30s in the Northland next week with overnight lows in the teens, possibly even some single digits. As I pointed out in yesterday’s post, if this was January it would be considered a heat wave around here, but now that it’s April this is actually pretty chilly, even for around here.
Source: 12z European ensemble model 4.8.2020
I guess the good news is that the pattern really doesn’t look too active across the Northland with below average precipitation forecast through April 23rd. That’s not to say we won’t see the occasional light snow/rain event over the next 2 weeks, but there’s no strong signals showing up in model guidance for a major storm to impact our area.
Source: 12z European ensemble model 4.8.2020
A very active day for severe thunderstorms on Tuesday with over 250 filtered severe weather reports on April 7th, including over 130 reports of large hail of at least 1 inch in diameter and 19 reports of hail of at least 2 inch.
Source: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/
Widespread severe weather is expected once again through tonight from the middle Mississippi Valley into the Ohio and Tennessee Valley. The beginnings of today’s severe weather episode is getting going this afternoon over southeast Iowa and western Illinois with activity moving to the southeast.
Source: Goes-16 sandwich imagery 4.8.2020; https://weather.cod.edu/
MRMS radar loop ending at 4 PM Wednesday shows scattered strong to severe thunderstorms moving east-southeast across west-central Illinois and northeast Missouri.
Source: https://lab.weathermodels.com/
So much going on in today’s water vapor loop, weather nerds love this stuff!
-Northern stream trough digging south into the upper Midwest.
-A strong closed low churning over California.
-The active subtropical jet from the Baja region into the southern US.
-Clusters of severe thunderstorms developing downstream of the trough digging into our area, and also embedded within the subtropical jet across the southeast US.
Source: https://weather.cod.edu/
…Weather Summary…
Partly to mostly cloudy skies will be found over the Northland tonight and Thursday with a breezy northwest wind 10 to 20 mph with gusts >30 mph.
Widely scattered showers will also continue through Thursday with brief heavier showers mixed in. Precipitation types will start off as rain this evening, but should go over to snow overnight through early Thursday afternoon, and then going back to either rain or snow mid to late Thursday afternoon.
Not expecting a whole lot of QPF tonight or Thursday as these showers will move through quickly, but its possible we could see a coating to 2 inches of snow later tonight mainly in northern Minnesota.
Lows tonight will be in the 20s to around 30 degrees with highs on Thursday in the 30s to around 40 degrees.
Friday and Saturday look pretty nice at the moment with highs in the 40s on Friday, and in the 40s and 50s Saturday.
Chances for some snow or rain mainly across eastern Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin for Easter Sunday, looks dry in northern Minnesota.
Some snow is possible Sunday night through Tuesday, but as I pointed out earlier in this post there remains a good deal of uncertainty on where this system tracks. Could be looking at several inches of snow, or just nuisance amounts. Stay tuned.
Note: High temperature reached 62 degrees at the Duluth Airport on April 7, 2020, this was the first 60 degree or warmer temperature in Duluth this year. The average date for first 60 degree temperature in Duluth is April 12. Last year’s first 60 occurred on April 22.
Forecast for Duluth and Superior
.Tonight… Breezy. Partly to mostly cloudy. A few rain and snow showers. Low 26 to 31. Wind west to northwest 15 to 25 mph.
.Thursday… Breezy. Partly to mostly cloudy. A few snow and rain showers. High 35 to 40. Wind northwest 15 to 25 mph.
.Friday… Partly to mostly cloudy. High 40 to 45. Wind west to southwest 10 to 20 mph.
| Normal temperatures for April 9 High 46 Low 27 Sunrise Thursday 6:31 AM CDT Sunset Thursday 7:50 PM CDT |
Thanks for reading!
Tim
