Significant snowfall on the way, but will it stick around for the holidays?

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: Our top story this afternoon on Minnesota Now is snow. There's a good chance of significant snow coming tonight. It's giving us a higher chance of a white Christmas and also a higher chance of holiday travel maybe being impacted by the weather. So to get a full scope of what's coming, NPR's chief meteorologist Paul Huttner is joining me now. Paul, thanks for being here.

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, my pleasure, Nina. We're trying. We're trying to get some snow in here for the holiday.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, I think everyone's wondering what's going on just in the next couple of days? Because people might actually be really shoveling.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and travel will be an issue anytime from later tonight, right through tomorrow. This system is pretty good-looking on the weather maps. It's a potent system. It's going to sail southeast through Minnesota overnight tonight and through the day tomorrow.

Snow, it looks like, will bust out in the Red River Valley around midnight tonight, maybe even a little sooner, Fargo-Moorhead area, and then move southeast towards St. Cloud and the Twin Cities. It'll be into the Twin Cities, I think, before morning rush hour. So maybe 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, we might have an inch of snow down by rush hour tomorrow morning, so it could be slick already in the morning.

But there's a couple of things with this system that we're going to have to watch. First of all, is the storm track. Right now, the way the forecast models are tracking, it looks like this takes this heavy band of snow from the Fargo-Moorhead Thief River area through Bemidji, Grand Rapids, down to Brainerd, St. Cloud, into maybe the northern parts of the Twin Cities, up to Hinckley and Duluth.

3 to 6 inches look likely in that zone, maybe 5 to 8 along the North Shore. But Nina, if that track moves a little bit north, it's going to reduce snowfall totals, especially in the Southern Twin Cities. So I could see a scenario where we get an inch or two in the Southern Twin Cities and 3 to 6 in the northern suburbs.

So your chances of getting a half a foot of snow are much better in Anoka, say, than in Lakeville. We're going to have to see. That snow starts in the morning, may take a break tomorrow, and then come back in the afternoon. Really important to watch the track of this thing, Nina. Twin Cities is right on the edge of this snow gradient to the South. Southern Minnesota won't get much snow at all, maybe an inch or two.

NINA MOINI: Wow. So we know you'll be tracking that closely as it sort of unfolds. What about a white Christmas? A lot of people want to be experiencing that. Is that something historically we have? It doesn't feel like we did last year. I can't remember.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and the Minnesota State climate people actually track that around Minnesota, the definition at least an inch of snow on the ground Christmas morning to have a white Christmas. So Northern Minnesota, it's a lock 100% of the time historically, going back to the late 1800s. International Falls, Iron Range, Ely, 100% chance of a white Christmas.

You get to Duluth, it's about 98%. Brainerd, 97%. Rochester, 78%. St. Cloud, 74%. Twin Cities, about 71%. Historically, we've had a white Christmas in the Twin Cities. So our odds are good. This year, it'll be interesting to see, whatever snow falls, how much of it sticks around, because we're going to warm up a bit next week.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it's going to be pretty mild.

PAUL HUTTNER: It will. Our airflow will shift from this chilly air we've had so far this month, December running 2 and 1/2 degrees colder than normal so far. That changes next week. Air comes off the Pacific Ocean. Highs will be well into the 30s, it looks like, maybe even starting Sunday--

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: --after a chilly teens, as we head into the weekend, and maybe through most of next week, highs in the mid, maybe even upper 30s. So we'll melt a little bit of that snow, Nina. It's going to be interesting to see how much is on the ground by the middle or end of next week.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and I'm also looking forward to some longer days. I know the winter solstice is coming up. Explain for everybody what exactly that means and as it relates to weather.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, that happens Saturday, December 21, at 3:21 AM. Basically, that's when the sun has its furthest south point of the year in its travels. It's 23 and 1/2 degrees south of the equator for geeks who like to follow that stuff.

And that means that our sun is at the lowest angle of the year here. In the noon sky on that day, it will only be 21 and 1/2 degrees above the horizon. That's the level, if you were to look right out at the level horizon. So that's the shortest daylight for us, 8 hours and 36 minutes.

Here's the good news. Because the Earth has this elliptical orbit and not a circle, our sunsets are already moving later, before the solstice. So we gain 10 minutes of evening daylight. 4:41 is our sunset by the end of this month. So hey, on clear nights by then, it's light til almost 5 o'clock, and we're gaining daylight from there.

NINA MOINI: We'll take it. Paul, what is on Climate Cast this week?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, Pete Boulay with the Minnesota State Climate Office, they track our winter trends in Minnesota, and it's remarkable how much we've warmed since 1970. Winters, especially, have warmed 5 to 7 degrees in Minnesota overall.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: So we're going to talk about those trends, what that means, and what that portends going forward into the future. That's on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered, Nina.

NINA MOINI: All right. As always, thanks for being here, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was MPR's chief meteorologist, Paul Huttner.