6:14 PM Monday, March 21, 2022
A large storm system will bring a variety of precipitation types to the Northland from late tonight through Wednesday.
One thing that is apparent is that the Arrowhead of Minnesota should see the most snow out of this storm, with snowfall totals of 6-12″+.
Another area which may see higher snow totals (3-6″) is over parts of north-central Minnesota.
Outside of those 2 aforementioned areas the forecast is a crapshoot, thus I’m going with 1-3″ of snow, but those amounts could go up if the changeover to snow happens sooner, and if heavier snow lingers into Wednesday.
Snow that does accumulate will contain a lot of water (this will likely be a wet/slushy/concrete snow)
-Heaviest precipitation rates are expected Tuesday into early Wednesday morning.
-Temperatures aloft will be warm enough for mostly liquid precipitation late tonight through at least mid-afternoon Tuesday, but as that rain hits the surface it may freeze in some parts of the Northland if temperatures are cold enough (i.e., 30 to 32 degrees) the icing threat is greatest over parts of northeast Minnesota.
-Temperatures aloft look to cool enough by late Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday evening to where we should see a transition from rain or freezing rain to all snow in most of the Northland. This changeover to snow will likely push south out of northern Minnesota later Tuesday.
-Snow may persist through much of the day Wednesday, but it’s uncertain if any of this will be very heavy due to the deeper moisture and better lift exiting off to the east already by late Tuesday night, so it may be more of a case where yes, it’s snowing, but not really amounting to much on Wednesday.
Mainly dry weather continues in northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin into this evening, but after that we should see precipitation develop and expand from south to north across the area, although the timing may slow down some, but basically any time after Midnight tonight to Noon Tuesday is when we should see the onset of steadier precipitation in the Northland.
Simulated radar forecast thru 7 AM Wednesday.
Snow (blue)
Rain (green)
Wintry mix, freezing rain and sleet (pink and purple)
For Duluth — Rain, freezing rain and possibly even some sleet develops after Midnight tonight with precipitation continuing through early Wednesday morning. A changeover to snow looks to occur sometime Tuesday afternoon-early Tuesday evening, roughly from around 2 PM to 6 PM. Snow lingers overnight Tuesday and possibly into most of the day Wednesday, but the heaviest precipitation rates are expected to be in that Tuesday afternoon-evening time frame.
Various winter weather alerts are in effect for parts of north-central and northeast Minnesota for later tonight through Wednesday morning.
A lot of different parts to this storm, but the main ones would be the low over Saskatchewan, and the low over Texas while a deep trough ejects NE out of the Southern Rockies and Southern Plains, with a good feed of deep moisture streaming north out of the Gulf ahead of the mid-upper-level trough.
Water vapor loop from Monday afternoon, March 21, 2022.
This will be a slow-moving storm as it moves from north Texas this evening to eastern Lake Michigan by around daybreak on Thursday.
A blended forecast model approach still gives much of the Northland between a half inch to an inch of liquid equivalent precipitation through Wednesday evening, but it remains to be seen if the severe weather developing well to our south tonight and Tuesday uses up at least some of this moisture before it gets up into the Northland leading to lower amounts of precipitation in our area.
Also, if all of this precipitation was in the form of either snow or freezing rain, then we’d be looking at quite a major event in our area, but that’s unlikely to happen since will have different precipitation types through this event.
Ice accumulations of a light glaze to 0.10″ are possible in parts of northeast Minnesota into extreme northwest Wisconsin late tonight through the day Tuesday, with a chance for a more significant ice event along the North Shore (black outlined area on map) where up to a quarter inch of ice accumulation is possible through late Tuesday afternoon.
Scattered power outages are possible in parts of northeast Minnesota Tuesday into early Wednesday due to the potential of ice and wet snow accumulations combined with gusty winds.
Windy weather will continue especially near Lake Superior through Wednesday, although winds might not be quite as strong as we saw today with wind gusts approaching 50 mph at the Duluth Harbor, but we’re still looking at wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph near Lake Superior from this evening through Wednesday with a northeasterly wind direction.
A textbook example of a dryline on the Southern Plains on full display today.
The weather is getting pretty crazy across the Southern Plains as the battle between winter and spring rages on.
An outbreak of severe thunderstorms with a risk for strong tornadoes, very large hail and damaging winds covers parts of northern, central and eastern Texas through tonight.
A look at the updraft helicity forecast thru 7 AM Tuesday shows where we could see rotating thunderstorms.
Note: Brighter colors on this map indicate a higher chance for supercell thunderstorms capable of spinning up a tornado.
Another outbreak of severe thunderstorms is likely on Tuesday just a little farther east from where the risk is today.
Much like today, there is a chance for several tornadoes (some of which may be strong) along with damaging winds and large hail.
Thanks for reading!
Tim
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