6:05 PM Thursday, December 14, 2023
A messy system will be impacting parts of the Northland Friday into Saturday morning with marginal temperatures in place to support an all-snow event. Instead, will likely be dealing with both rain and wet snow with this system.
*Rain develops late tonight/Friday morning with some rain expected to continue during the day Friday.
*Locations north of Duluth could see the rain change over to wet snow on Friday.
*Most of the precipitation shifts a little farther south into east central Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin Friday night through Saturday morning, and precipitation types will range from wet snow to rain.
*Precipitation should come to an end by Saturday afternoon.
Duluth area: Some rain on Friday with temperatures between 35 and 39 degrees. Rain changes to wet snow Friday evening/overnight with wet snow continuing into Saturday morning before ending Saturday afternoon. Temperatures around 31 to 34 degrees Friday night into Saturday morning with east winds gusting 15 to 25 mph. Note — This may end up being an elevation snow event in Duluth where the bulk of the snow occurs in higher elevation on top of the hill while rain or wet snow occurs in lower elevation below the hill and closer to Lake Superior.
European computer model radar forecast valid from Midnight tonight to 12 PM Saturday.
Snow (blue)
Wintry Mix (purple)
Rain (green)
Here is my updated snowfall forecast through Saturday morning.
The main change to my snowfall forecast today is to increase snow totals farther south while decreasing the totals farther north as the main band of precipitation sets up farther south compared to how things looked 24 hours ago.
The bulk of the snow in east central Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin won’t occur until Friday night into Saturday morning with precipitation before then mostly in the form of rain.
This will be a wet/slushy/dense snowfall due to the mild temperatures in place.
Duluth area: 1 to 2 inches of snow is possible Friday night through Saturday morning.
Stay tuned for updates as snow totals could increase/decrease while the gradients could also shift around a little more over the next 12 hours or so.
Will see two troughs move over the upper Midwest and central Plains through Saturday. One trough will move southeast out of southwest Canada, while another trough moves east-northeast out of the southern Rockies.
NAM 500mb forecast valid 6 AM Friday to 6 PM Saturday.
Goes-16 water vapor loop from Thursday afternoon, December 14, 2023.
This system will have plenty of moisture to work with as precipitable water values increase to around 0.50″ to 0.80″ across the Northland on Friday, and this plume of deeper moisture should remain over the Northland through Saturday morning.
Thanks for reading!
Tim
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