A chilly Thanksgiving forecast rounds out a warm meteorological Fall

NINA MOINI: Well, parts of the state have certainly looked a little bit more festive this week. Many of you listening across the state are seeing some light snow even today. It's not looking severe, though, enough to affect Thanksgiving weekend travel. But as meteorological fall wraps up, let's get the rundown from our own meteorologist, Paul Huttner. Hi, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Nina. Happy Thanksgiving. Grateful to chat with you today, and grateful for a furnace and MnDOT these days.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. I'm always grateful to chat with you, Paul. So, light snow. It's pretty dreary and not a lot of snow I'm seeing here out the window in St. Paul. But what are other folks seeing?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it's a November gray across Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

PAUL HUTTNER: There is a weak wave that's moving across Minnesota. Now, this thing is a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. But it's enough to squeeze out some light snow and flurries. Right now, parts of Western Minnesota, Central Minnesota, just near and west of St. Cloud, down through Wilmer, Redwood Falls, and that'll ease into the Twin Cities here over the next couple of hours.

It's light, mainly flurries and some light snow, accumulations less than an inch just about everywhere. But as we know, when it's below freezing, could see a couple of slick spots out there as this thing moves through this afternoon. It'll be done by tonight. And overall, Thanksgiving travel looks pretty good today and pretty good tomorrow and through the weekend, though it will be chilly.

NINA MOINI: Oh, OK. That's good to know. So how does this Thanksgiving rank, I guess, among historical weather or what's considered average?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, we're in about the coldest third of Thanksgivings this year.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: Our normal high in the Twin Cities on Thanksgiving Day is 38. So we're going to top out around 25, 26 tomorrow, with a brisk northwest wind. So it's going to feel even colder than that. And interestingly, if we stay below 26, it would be the coldest Thanksgiving in 10 years since 2014, when we topped out at 10 above. We had 26 just three years ago. So this is definitely on the chilly side. We've been as warm as 62 in the Twin Cities in 1914 and 1922. Coldest-- 1 below for the highway back in 1872.

NINA MOINI: [CHUCKLES] Yeah, it's been a lot of ups and downs this year in weather. It was really, really warm, and now it's going to be cold. What are you seeing for next week, or is it still looking pretty cold?

PAUL HUTTNER: It is. So I call this week a seasonal pattern change, Nina, where the jet stream is not just a little brief cooldown. We've really seen the jet stream buckle, shift to the south, out of Canada, bring that colder air down with it. And it's a persistent pattern.

And it looks like this will last right through this holiday weekend. So, really, even a shade colder Black Friday through Sunday, highs in the teens to around 20 in the Twin Cities, and overnight lows, single digits above zero. We may even see some subzero readings in Northwest Minnesota this weekend.

And then next week, the pattern looks persistent-- highs mainly in the 20s, might see a day or two in the 30s. But just on the models I was looking at this morning, Nina, some chances for snow late next week. So it's been cold. The grass is still kind of green out there around the Twin Cities. But it looks like it could turn white here over the next week or so, if we get a couple of those clippers sliding down late next week.

NINA MOINI: And I always like to ask you about this, Paul-- does this give an indication of what winter is going to be like? Or what indications do you have of what this winter might look like?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, the main thing is this weak La Nina that's developing in the tropical Pacific. Now that's when waters are colder than normal along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. It affects jet stream patterns that can affect Minnesota. And in La Nina winters, the trend is for colder and snowier than normal weather for the winter.

This is a weak system. We're battling climate change in which winters are 5 to 8 degrees warmer in Minnesota. So my guess is it's probably going to be a near normal-ish winter for temperatures, maybe even a little above normal. But that's going to be a real winter compared to last year, which was the warmest on record. And we'll probably get our fair share of snow. It's normal average of 52 inches in the Twin Cities. I think we could get close to that this year, at least.

NINA MOINI: And so meteorological-- that's a hard word for me to say-- [LAUGHS] meteorological fall ends on Saturday. So what's your fall synopsis? What was it like? Pretty warm, huh?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it was. And happy meteorological winter to those who celebrate on Sunday. But look, we're on pace for the warmest fall on record. But it's kind of a close call because this cold weather we have around this week is dropping our numbers a little bit. September was the warmest on record.

And meteorological fall, by the way, goes from September, October, through November, for record keeping purposes. September, 7 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities-- warmest on record. October, 8 degrees warmer than normal-- it was the fifth warmest. In November through yesterday, it was 5.9--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: --degrees warmer than normal. Now, that's dropping by the day because of these cold temperatures. So it looks like we're going to be neck and neck with 1931, which was the warmest on record. If you add up all the high temperatures and low temperatures for September, October, November, divide them by the number of days, you come up with 56.5 degrees. That's the average temperature through the fall, Nina. Boy, that sounds pretty good right about now, doesn't it?

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it does. Thanks for being on and updating us on all that, Paul. I appreciate it.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Happy Thanksgiving, Nina.

NINA MOINI: You, too. That was MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.