6:27 PM Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Arctic high pressure of 1042 mb/30.77 inches was centered over central South Dakota this afternoon, with plenty of cold air and northerly winds to the northeast of this high in the Northland today. The center of this high will finally push off to the southeast of our area on Friday, resulting in a milder southerly flow developing across the Northland.
A steady light snow has been falling since early this morning in northeast Minnesota and far northwest Wisconsin. However, due to the cold and dry airmass firmly entrenched and weak lift, we have observed fairly small snowflakes. This is due to an unfavorable dendritic growth zone (DGZ), resulting in minimal snow accumulations of an inch or less today.
Light snow will continue this evening but should end by late tonight. New snow accumulation will be less than an inch.
Note: As of 4 PM today, Duluth received 0.05 inches of precipitation and 0.4 inches of snow, resulting in a snowfall ratio of just 8:1.
Snowfall Reports thru 5 PM February 19, 2025
- 5 S Herbster, WI: 1.0″
- 3 E Payne, MN: 0.6
- Duluth, MN: 0.4″ (Official total at the NWS)
Radar loop ends 5:28 PM CT Wednesday, February 19, 2025.
More subzero temperatures are expected in the Northland tonight, with lows between 5 and 15 below zero, though it will be a bit warmer near Lake Superior. Note: Another subzero night is likely on Thursday, but milder temperatures will return until later next week.
Highs on Thursday will be in the middle teens to lower 20s, still 5 to 10 degrees below normal for this time of year, but warmer than recent days.
Similar high temperatures are expected on Friday, and then we will see temperatures jump to the 30s to around 40 this weekend into early next week.
We will be seeing a pretty nice thaw as we get into this weekend and at least into early to mid-next week, but there’s plenty of cold Arctic air still available to tap into, and it looks like we may do just that beginning later next week and into early March.
An active clipper pattern looks to develop next week; however, the majority of these clipper systems are expected to track north of our area, thereby limiting the amount of snow or mixed precipitation in most the Northland. Nonetheless, there could still be occasional snow or mixed precipitation in parts of the Northland later this weekend and next week.
Another way to see temperatures is by checking the 500mb height anomaly forecast.
Typically, orange on this graph means milder temperatures, while blue, green, and purple indicate colder temperatures.
The GEFS model forecast shows a milder pattern in Duluth for the next few days, lasting until about February 24th, after which colder conditions may return.
Thanks for reading!
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