5:20 PM Friday, March 29, 2024
Another round of snow along with some freezing rain/drizzle will move through parts of the Northland tonight into Saturday morning as a trough of low pressure moves east out of the northern Plains.
This system will have some strong lift and moisture to work with and even some weak elevated instability and steep mid-level lapse rates, but this system will move through fairly quickly and this should help to limit the amount of snow and ice will see tonight, but with that said there is a chance for some brief bursts of heavy snow tonight into early Saturday morning especially in parts of northern Minnesota, North Shore and Arrowhead.
Gusty east winds 15 to 30 mph will occur tonight near Lake Superior and Twin Ports. Winds will diminish Saturday and shift to the northwest.
NAM 3km model simulated radar forecast through 1 PM Saturday.
Total Snowfall Accumulations through Saturday morning
- Trace to 2 inches of snow is expected in much of the Northland.
- 2 to 4 inches of snow is possible along the North Shore of Lake Superior where we could get a little lake and terrain enhanced snow tonight with east winds out ahead of this system.
Duluth area: Total snowfall accumulations of up to 1 inch tonight.
Ice accumulations of a light glaze to as much as one tenth of an inch are possible late tonight through early Saturday morning from east central Minnesota into much of northwest Wisconsin.
Winter Weather Advisory is in effect from 9 PM this evening until 10 AM Saturday for parts of northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin.
Note: With any luck this will be our final winter weather advisory of the season.
We’re also seeing a nice temperature gradient ahead of tonight’s system with temperatures this afternoon ranging from the 50s in far southern Minnesota to the 30s in northern Minnesota.
Here’s a look at the system approaching the Northland late this afternoon as seen on water vapor imagery.
Goes-16 water vapor loop ending 4 PM Friday, March 29, 2024.
Storm Track for early next week (April 1-2)
Will see a larger scale upper trough and area of low pressure move out of the Rockies early next week but this system looks like it will pass well south of the Northland (red area on map) so it doesn’t look like will be getting any rain or snow out of this next system early next week.
Chances for severe thunderstorms will be on the increase early next week as a strong upper-level trough moves out of the Rockies.
Severe thunderstorm chances on Monday are highest from central Illinois and central Indiana southwest through Missouri and eastern Kansas south to central-eastern Oklahoma into northeast Texas and much of Arkansas. All severe hazards are on the table for Monday including tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail.
The potential for severe thunderstorms (yellow area on map) continues next Tuesday but shifts farther to the south/east from where the risk is on Monday. A few tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail are possible with severe storms Tuesday.
As we get into late next week, we see the potential for the pattern to become pretty amplified with strong troughs over the western and eastern U.S. with a ridge in between. If this type of pattern does develop late next week, then we could be looking at a delay to a more active weather pattern for the upper Midwest to after April 8th.
EPS model keeps the warmest temperatures west of the Northland April 4th-9th although temperatures still look to run a little warmer than average in our local area except for the typical lake cooling near Lake Superior.
GEFS model is sending a lot of warmth northward into our area April 4th-9th with temperatures in the 60s and 70s on a few days during the aforementioned time period.
Oldest model run is days 9-13 and the newest model run is days 7-11 on the loop below.
Above average temperatures in the orange and red.
Below average temperatures in blue colors.
Thanks for reading!
Tim