4:59 PM Saturday, December 30, 2023
A little taste of winter weather in the Northland today as an area of low pressure along with a pretty strong trough digs south/east across the area. This system has been producing some snow today as well as some freezing drizzle which led to some slippery road conditions in parts of the area today.
0.2 inches of snow so far today at the National Weather Service in Duluth (total thru 4 PM Saturday) Can we squeeze out another 0.8 inches of snow to get to an inch of snow for this event? Time will tell.
After tonight’s system moves away the next few days look pretty quiet in the Northland, but we will see a couple cold front pass through the area around the middle to end of next week and those fronts could bring a few snow showers to the Northland but no major systems showing up on the computer models through late next week.
Here’s my snowfall forecast through 12 PM Sunday.
Duluth area: Around 1″ of snow tonight with a lower chance ~30% for up to 2″ of snow.
1 to 3″ of snow along the South Shore in northern Wisconsin with a few isolated 4″ totals possible if heavier lake effect snow bands develop, and that is a possibility through Sunday morning.
It’s definitely been a fairly chaotic precipitation pattern today as we’ve been seeing somewhat heavier snow bands move in all sorts of directions while there’s likely been some lake enhanced/lake effect snow affecting areas near and south/east of the city of Superior in northwest Wisconsin this afternoon.
Radar loop ending 4:25 PM Saturday, December 30, 2023.
Snow across northeast Minnesota will end from northwest-southeast later tonight while snow tapers off in northwest Wisconsin before Noon Sunday, but snow showers will likely linger into Sunday afternoon along Lake Superior’s South Shore.
NAM 3km model radar forecast through 6 PM Sunday.
Temperatures late this afternoon were mostly in the middle 20s to lower 30s and will see these temperatures fall into the middle teens to middle 20s (coldest in northern Minnesota) Sunday morning.
The entire Northland should have lows in the teens Monday morning with some single digits also possible.
Highs on New Years Eve will range from the lower 20s in northern Minnesota to the middle 20s to around 30 in east central Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin. Highs New Years Day will be mostly in the 30s.
Surface low pressure was located over north central Wisconsin (northwest of Green Bay) late this afternoon and this low will continue to track off to the southeast tonight.
The airmass crossing Lake Superior will turn colder tonight and Sunday as 850mb temperatures bottom out at around -9 to -12C, and that combined with a favorable north-northeast wind should cause some lake effect snow tonight and Sunday along the South Shore of Lake Superior in northwest Wisconsin.
Quite an impressive system over the area today but since it’s coming out of Canada it just doesn’t have a whole lot of moisture to work with.
Goes-16 water vapor loop from Saturday, December 30, 2023 (loop time ends 3:40 PM CT)
Thanks for reading!
Tim