6:15 PM Sunday, February 23, 2025
-A few systems will track across the region this week with a strong northern jet stream. While none are expected to deliver heavy snow, rain, or mixed precipitation to the Northland, some precipitation will occur at times.
-A system is moving through the area tonight, bringing light rain and possibly some snow in northern Minnesota, especially the Arrowhead region. Areas in the far north that see snow would only get about an inch or less of accumulation. Rainfall amounts of 0.05 to 0.25 inches are possible in far northern Minnesota tonight with lesser amounts of rain farther south including for Duluth.
HRRR model simulated radar forecast through 7 AM Monday.
– A second system might bring some snow or mixed precipitation to parts of Northland from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, but there is uncertainty about its path and the amount of precipitation.
-The third and possibly strongest system this week is forecast to move east-southeast from southern Manitoba on Friday. If it tracks further south, some areas in the Northland might see accumulating snow later this week. However, it currently seems that most of the Northland will only experience a little rain or light snow with minimal accumulations on Friday. This may change though in the coming days.
Note: We’re less than a month away from when Duluth typically records its first 50-degree temperature of the year, which is March 20th. The earliest 50-degree day was January 14th in 1894, and the latest 50-degree day on record was on May 1st in 1917.
Duluth’s first 50-degree temperature from 2015 to 2024 is shown here.
- 2015: March 9
- 2016: February 27
- 2017: February 17
- 2018: April 19
- 2019: March 21
- 2020: March 8
- 2021: March 8
- 2022: March 22
- 2023: April 9
- 2024: February 5
Note: Last Sunday, Duluth had a high of 7 and a low of -6. Fast forward a week, and the high today was 38 and the low was 26.
Widespread temperatures in the 40s in northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin this afternoon, with 30s near Lake Superior due to a light onshore wind.
Even warmer in southern Minnesota today, with temperatures in the 50s.
Temperatures this afternoon were running around 15 to 25 degrees above normal across the Northland, to as much as 30 degrees above normal farther to the south.
Widespread 40s are expected in the Northland on Monday.
Note: The warmest temperature so far this year in Duluth is 43 on January 30th. It looks like we will see temperatures on Monday pretty similar to those observed in late January. Some weak cold air advection moving through behind tonight’s system will probably prevent temperatures from hitting 50 closer to Lake Superior in Duluth on Monday.
Here’s a look at the Euro ensemble forecast of Friday’s clipper low.
Again, the majority of the members keep this low north of our area, which would lead to only a few rain or snow showers on Friday; however, there are a couple of members showing the low tracking farther south, and if that does happen, this would increase the chance of getting a few inches of snow in some parts of the Northland on Friday.
About a week from today we may see a system move into the southern Rockies and depending on its track it may or may not affect the Northland sometime the following week, around March 4-6.
Currently, the computer models are favoring a more suppressed storm track across the central Plains to the Midwest, with most of the precipitation staying south of our area from around March 4-6. However, as always, the track of this system could shift more to the north or even more to the south over the next 5 days or so. If it tracks farther north the chances for precipitation (snow/rain/ice) would increase in our area sometime in the March 4-6 timeframe. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading!