- Windy weather will continue in the Northland tonight and Thursday with winds out of the west tonight, shifting to the northwest on Thursday. Gusts of 20 to 30 mph are likely with higher gusts possible.
- A strong area of low pressure <985mb will pass north of Lake Superior tonight, and the combination of a tight pressure gradient covering the region, plus another round of cold air advection will continue the windy weather in our area for another 24 hours.
- Thursday will start out mild with temps mostly in the 20s, but temperatures will be falling to the single digits and teens during the afternoon as a reinforcing shot of cold/arctic air moves in, with subzero temperatures likely in our area Thursday night/Friday morning and again Friday night/Saturday morning.
Will see a few snow showers and flurries across the Northland tonight into Thursday morning, but little to no accumulation is expected except in northern Minnesota where snow could accumulate to a half inch to an inch (black outlined area on map)
18z HRRR model simulated radar forecast valid from 6 PM this evening to Noon Thursday.
Source: https://www.pivotalweather.com/
A chilly start this morning, but temperatures warmed up significantly this afternoon thanks to strong WSW winds (chinook type of wind)
Temperatures this Wednesday afternoon are running some 20 to 40 degrees warmer compared to this time on Tuesday.
Source: https://lab.weathermodels.com/
10-Day temperature forecast doesn’t look terribly cold in Duluth, with only two subzero nights through the end of next week (January 30) Coldest stretch looks to be Thursday night through Saturday morning, thereafter temps will be running near to above normal the way it looks now.
Source: https://weathermodels.com/
Split flow continues, although the northern branch or polar jet stream has shifted farther south compared to where it has been for weeks, and the result from this is for occasional shots of cold/arctic air to spill into the upper Midwest, but we continue to get some influence from the Pacific as well, so more or less it’s an up and down temperature forecast through next week.
…Weekend snow potential…
A large low pressure system will be affecting the western US the next few days, but as this system moves east into the Plains it will weaken a bit.
Note: The track of this system remains pretty far to the south to give the Northland much snow, but some moisture lifting north into a colder/drier air mass should be enough to generate some snow Saturday afternoon into Saturday night, and with a cold air mass in place the snow to liquid ratios look pretty high, ranging from around 15:1 to as high as 20:1, so this should be a much fluffier snow compared to our recent snow event, with even a tenth of an inch of QPF being able to fluff up to around 1-2″ of snow the way it looks now, and if QPF amounts trend higher, then we could see even more snow, perhaps in that 3-5″ range, but the way things have been this winter I would stick with the lower amounts.
Source: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
Visible satellite imagery was picking up a couple different things this afternoon.
Source: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/
Here’s a visible satellite loop from today, Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
Tim