NWS watching potential for 'impactful winter weather' Friday-Saturday
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Old Man Winter has 18 days to deliver a white Christmas to Minnesota, and there's a chance he blows in a storm system that could cover much of the state's snowless land later this week.
"We are watching a storm system that may potentially bring impactful winter weather to portions of the Upper Midwest Friday through Saturday," says the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service (NWS). "We know very little on the details of the storm at this point, as plenty of uncertainty remains regarding the track, timing, and intensity of this system."
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The track of the storm will be critical in determining who gets snow. AccuWeather's breakdown of the storm system explains the two most likely scenarios. In the first scenario, the storm track would likely bring "significant snow" to much of Minnesota, while the second scenario would see the storm's most extensive impact hit the Great Lakes region, with Minnesota missing out on the bulk of precipitation.
Credit: NWS Twin Cities
Another major factor with the storm system will be temperatures.
"Temperatures do look warm enough on Friday with the initial onset of the system to support areas of rain or a rain/snow mix (in areas where precipitation actually occurs), before temperatures cool enough overnight into Saturday and support mostly snow," NWS Twin Cities mentions in its forecast discussion.
The La Crosse office of the NWS is also monitoring the storm's evolution, saying "it will likely take a few more model cycles to start to have a higher degree of confidence in potential impacts locally."
The Duluth office of the NWS says "it's looking like a decent portion" of its forecast area "may see accumulating snow."
The American model is more bullish on bringing accumulating snow to parts of Minnesota. Here's that model's radar simulation, which should be taken with a grain of salt. Note how dry we stay through Thursday before the storm system ejects northward out of the Oklahoma area.
Here's the European model, which shows Minnesota getting light snow while the storm slides further off to the east.
