More snow in Wednesday's forecast with icy temperatures to follow

CATHY WURZER: Well, it is winter. Yes, no denying it now-- it has arrived. First we got the snow, right? And now the real cold is not too far behind. Joining us right now is MPR's choose-- I can say this-- MPR News's chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. Hey, Paul, how are you doing?

PAUL HUTTNER: I'm doing great. Hey, it's winter weather lovers and weather geeks unite week here for Minnesota, finally.

CATHY WURZER: I know. Gosh, it's like a conga line of winter storms that we have here.

PAUL HUTTNER: It is, and they come in little pieces this week. You know, it's an interesting pattern to watch because we've got a major southern storm track that's been delivering huge storms just south of Minnesota. This track from like Des Moines to Chicago, that's been active. Storm number one already went through this week with 6 to 15 inches of snow from Sioux Falls down to around Des Moines, Iowa City into southwest Wisconsin.

And then the next system comes in Thursday into Friday, and that'll produce another 6 to 12 inches plus, parts of southern Iowa, northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin. Chicago could get more than a foot of snow with this next storm, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Oh my gosh-- OK, how about our neck of the woods? I mentioned the snow in far northeastern Minnesota here today. That looks like that's going to be a pretty decent storm. How about the Twin Cities?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it's kind of a clipper that's coming through. So there's light snow across much of Minnesota now, northwest Minnesota around Thief River Falls, down to Park Rapids-- Alexandria getting some light snow. Twin Cities now, western suburbs, it's snowing here at the weather lab. It's just easing into downtown Minneapolis right now. So that'll overspread the Twin Cities in the next hour or so. That snow continues all the way down to Mankato.

And then the North Shore, as you mentioned, the lake is enhancing this, kind of turned on with this system. So it's snowing now from Cloquet, Duluth up through Two Harbors to Silver Bay and then up toward the Iron Range. This will pick up as we go through the day, through the night. That's why we're saying 6 to 10 inches of snow possible, especially Two Harbors up toward Silver Bay. By the time this is all done, and of course up on the hill, they're going to get plenty of it around Finland and Lutsen.

CATHY WURZER: OK, how about this cold that's coming behind the storm?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and I should have mentioned, first of all, most of us will see a coating to 2 inches with this snow coming through tonight, right-- Twin Cities, much of Minnesota-- so light but significant. And then that snow is really important because now that we're building a little snow cover around Minnesota, it paves the way for this Arctic outbreak because we get colder with snow cover, even a couple of inches.

So the cold front comes behind this southern storm that I talked about that's heading for Chicago-- gusty northwest winds as we head into Friday and into Saturday, the season's coldest air so far, the first subzero outbreak for southern Minnesota. It's been below zero up north already a few times this year-- this winter.

And so it looks like 0 to 10 below in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota Sunday and Monday mornings, 20 below up north-- northern, northwestern Minnesota. And as far as how late that is, it's interesting because it looks like this will be about the sixth or seventh latest first subzero temperature in the Twin Cities. We've had subzero readings every winter in more than 152 years of records.

The long-term average is December 9, so we're coming in more than a month late. The latest ever is January 19. So we're within, what, five, six days of that if we get our first subzero this weekend, which we will.

CATHY WURZER: Hm.

PAUL HUTTNER: And that's quite interesting to see it come in this late this year.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, no kidding. At least it's arriving, though, which is good. And I mentioned there is another storm system. There's like a third one, right? Is that this weekend?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, that's mainly going to pass. That will be part of this system that's going to Chicago. So we may get some snow from about the Twin Cities south, and that looks like mainly a Friday event. It looks lighter from the Twin Cities south. But as you move down into Iowa and Wisconsin, there will be heavy snow with that system.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Hey, speaking of light, let's talk about daylight. It is--

PAUL HUTTNER: [GROAN]

CATHY WURZER: I know. I know. It's becoming brighter, which is nice.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yes, and always the optimist on that one. Now, we've been cloudy since about December 30 most of the days in Minnesota, so we could really use this. And we will see the sun this weekend once that Arctic air arrives.

Here's the thing-- we're now gaining a minute and a half of daylight per day, which is great. By January 10, which is today, nine hours and one minute of daylight. We've gained 15 minutes in the past three weeks, Cathy. And the sunset hits 5:00 PM next week on Thursday.

What we call civil twilight, where you can still kind of see, 530-- so on clear nights by next week, it's kind of light out till 5:30. So we're gaining two minutes a day starting next week. You're really going to notice the daylight ticking up as we head through the next week or two, especially if we get some sunny days.

And I would be remiss if I didn't just mention that Copernicus, the European Union climate group, came in with their 2023 as the hottest year ever. Globally, 1.48 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average, Cathy. That's close to that 1.5 that the IPCC is trying to avoid.

So part of that's El Niño. Part of it's just good old climate change.

CATHY WURZER: [GROAN], all right.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Before you go, speaking of climate change, what's on the Climate Cast?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, this is interesting. There's a housing project in Northfield, Minnesota, that's kind of combining climate change, homelessness, and poverty all in one project to kind of deal with a net zero energy community. And they're building these homes different. They're powering them by solar power-- very interesting stuff. We're going to talk about that on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.

CATHY WURZER: All right, that sounds like a plan. Thank you, Paul Huttner.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: You can listen to Paul and Tom Crann, All Things Considered, Monday through Friday right here on MPR News, 3:00 until 6:00. And of course we've got the Updraft blog. You can read that at mprnews.org.