Another cold day ahead on Thursday as highs will only be in the upper 20s to middle 30s, and Friday won’t be much warmer either as highs will generally be in the 30s.
A brief spike in temps is possible Saturday which could get us into the 40s in parts of the Northland, but this won’t last as cold air returns again for Sunday, but there continues to be strong signals showing up in model guidance of a longer lasting warm up for next week which could send temperatures into the 50s on a few days next week.
Not a whole lot of precipitation through the weekend, but we could see a few flurries/snow showers in spots tonight, and along the South Shore of Lake Superior Thursday due to some lake effect. Then, Thursday night into early Friday morning could feature an area of light snow pushing from NW-SE through western and southern portions of the Northland with an inch or less of snow accumulation possible.
18z NAM 3km radar forecast from 7 PM Thursday to 7 AM Friday.
Source: https://weathermodels.com/
Temperatures were warmer across southern portions of the Northland today with low to mid 40s, but this is still slightly below normal for late October, but temperatures across northern Minnesota were even colder and generally in the low to mid 30s today.
Note: Duluth finally made it above freezing today, Wednesday, October 28th, first time above freezing since Friday, October 23rd.
There was a nice burst of snow from about mid-morning to early this afternoon across far northern Minnesota (mostly north of the Iron Range) with a couple reports of 2 to 3 inches of snow today from Kabetogama to Buyck to the Winton and Ely areas. Temperatures were warmer further south where precipitation was mostly rain today, although I did get a report of freezing rain in the Hibbing area late this morning from a Facebook friend.
Note: Duluth Airport picked up 0.04″ of rain today.
Radar loop from Wednesday, October 28, 2020.
Source: https://weather.cod.edu/
Temperatures were considerably warmer this morning compared to Tuesday morning across much of the Northern Plains into the upper Midwest.
Source: https://lab.weathermodels.com/
The average temperature at Duluth, Minnesota from October 1 to October 27, 2020: 38.9 degrees (-5.1 degrees below normal)
Note: October 2020 currently ranks as the 7th coldest October on record at Duluth, and with only a few days left to go in the month we could see this ranking change a bit.
It’s been over two weeks since we last had an above average temperature at Duluth (October 13th)
18 days or 67% of days this month have been below average, while 9 days or 33% of days have been above average at Duluth, Minnesota.
Here is the daily average temperature departure at Duluth, Minnesota for October 2020 (thru the 27th)
Blue=Below average
Red=Above average
Source: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/
Hurricane Zeta making landfall this evening in southeastern Louisiana while a strong upper level low which has brought significant ice accumulations to parts of Oklahoma and Texas the last few days heads east.
Zeta moving NE into Louisiana late this afternoon while a strong trough moves ENE out of the Southern Plains per water vapor loop. Eventually will see these systems merge as they head into the northeast US late Thursday into Friday.
Source: https://weather.cod.edu/
Thanks for reading!
Tim
