Rollercoaster winter temperatures forecasted into the weekend
Ice skaters and an ice fisher are seen on Lake Nokomis with the Minneapolis skyline in the background on Jan. 8 in Minneapolis.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News
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Even though it’s chilly, some people may find it’s refreshing to having a real, cold and snowy Minnesota winter after last year’s winter dud. And this week, we’re going to have it all. Snow, freezing temperatures and above average temperatures.
MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner spoke to Minnesota Now host Nina Moini about this rollercoaster forecast.
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: It is chilly. We know that, it's been chilly this week for sure so far, but it's also been refreshing to a lot of people to have a real cold and snowy Minnesota winter after last year's winter, which was really, really warm and almost snowless. This week we've really had it all.
We've had snow, we've had negative temperatures, we're due for a warm up, though now. So MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner is on the line now to tell us all about that. Hi, Paul.
PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Nina. Happy halfway point of winter today.
NINA MOINI: You said that I was like, that sounds great. I guess I didn't know we were already at the halfway point. How have we been doing?
PAUL HUTTNER: Well, we started pretty mild. Do you remember that lovely long fall we had? It lingered a little bit into December, temperatures were 2.7 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities, but January has corrected that. It's been properly cold in Minnesota.
We're running 4 degrees colder than normal so far this month in the Twin Cities around much of Minnesota. So overall temperatures are pretty close to normal, which is remarkable because last winter was 10 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities and much of Minnesota. So this is much more like a real winter temperature-wise.
We've had nine subzero days in the Twin Cities so far, just a little behind pace to reach our average of 23 days during the year. But we're going to add to those as we head into this upcoming weekend and next week. But Nina, we're in a snow drought as we talked about before. We've only had 9.7 inches in the Twin Cities, that's 14 inches below average for snow.
Duluth closer to 2 feet below. They've had 21 inches, should have had over 44. So 1 to 2 foot snow drought around Minnesota. We need some snow.
NINA MOINI: And I thought it was going to be La Nina this year Paul. So I'm wondering about the next few months. What are you forecasting?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and it is. It's a weak La Nina and that's having that impact on our temperatures, but we just haven't had the jet stream in the right spot for snow. That could change as we head into February, we will see about that. But it looks like the second half of winter probably will still be at normal for temperatures, so it should be plenty cold.
NINA MOINI: So you alluded to this warm up that we're having through Saturday, it sounds like, it sounds like it's going to be really mild.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it will through Friday, and I think this will qualify as a January thaw, that definition two consecutive days above 32 degrees. This would be the 14th straight year we've had a January thaw in the Twin Cities. It looks like we'll be around 30 for Thursday and 38 on Friday.
Rochester could hit 40 Friday afternoon. Nina, we get January thaws in 82% of years statistically. If you go back to 1873, the last year we didn't have one was 2011. And typically it happens in the second or third week of January. So we're right on schedule here. You mentioned last winter, that was the longest January thaw ever, 24 days, Nina, over three weeks.
NINA MOINI: I remember. Well, how cold is it going to get, though, again this weekend?
PAUL HUTTNER: This will be the coldest air mass so far this winter. It could be the coldest of winter, but we still have plenty of time to go. It's an Arctic front, it arrives Friday night into Saturday. Temperatures will fall Saturday down to 0 or below by Saturday night in the Twin Cities, and they'll stay there until noon Tuesday.
So we could have about 60 straight hours of subzero temperatures in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. How cold? Well, 10 to 15 below in the Twin Cities, probably Sunday morning, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, 20 to 30 below up North and our highs around five below it looks like Nina on Sunday and Monday. So this will be a real serious cold snap, but it won't be close to any records which are in the 30s to 40s below next week for the Twin Cities.
NINA MOINI: Well, I'm very excited for this because I have in my notes safe weather experiments in subzero temperatures. And I'm just wondering, what are those?
PAUL HUTTNER: Well, most of them are safe that I'm going to give you because living on the edge, that's what we do. Look, here's one of my favorite ones. It's really simple, it's great for kids. When it gets down below 0 or cold can blow ice bubbles. Just get the regular bubbles that you get with the little wand.
And when temperatures are that cold, especially if you get a calm wind or it's light wind, just go out, keep them inside, keep them warm, but then go out and blow some ice bubbles and just watch them and they'll drift through the air and they'll freeze right in front of you. And then sometimes when they fall and hit something, they'll shatter instead of just melt. So it's really, really cool to do that.
And the other thing is, and people do this but you have to be careful here, if you take hot water, even boiling water, put it like in your thermos or something, when it gets to be about 10 below, 14 below, you can go outside and you can whip it out into the air and that water will turn to gas. It'll vaporize. So it's a pretty interesting phenomenon. You've seen those probably on Twitter. It's pretty cool to do, but that's one you got to be careful.
NINA MOINI: I've done a lot of these when I was a morning television news reporter freezing your jeans, the banana hammer, freeze the banana then make a hammer. So I got a lot of tricks, but yeah, safety first everybody. Very interested also in your Climate Cast this week as well, Paul, what's it about?
PAUL HUTTNER: We're going to talk with a Twin Cities realtor who's helped some clients move to Minnesota from places like Florida, Texas, California. And some of the clients, one of the reasons they're moving, they're citing climate and climate change. It's just getting harder and harder to live in those places with the hotter temperatures, with hurricanes, with wildfires. So we're going to talk about that on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.
NINA MOINI: Looking forward to it. Thanks so much, Paul.
PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.
NINA MOINI: That was MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner.
We've had snow, we've had negative temperatures, we're due for a warm up, though now. So MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner is on the line now to tell us all about that. Hi, Paul.
PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Nina. Happy halfway point of winter today.
NINA MOINI: You said that I was like, that sounds great. I guess I didn't know we were already at the halfway point. How have we been doing?
PAUL HUTTNER: Well, we started pretty mild. Do you remember that lovely long fall we had? It lingered a little bit into December, temperatures were 2.7 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities, but January has corrected that. It's been properly cold in Minnesota.
We're running 4 degrees colder than normal so far this month in the Twin Cities around much of Minnesota. So overall temperatures are pretty close to normal, which is remarkable because last winter was 10 degrees warmer than normal in the Twin Cities and much of Minnesota. So this is much more like a real winter temperature-wise.
We've had nine subzero days in the Twin Cities so far, just a little behind pace to reach our average of 23 days during the year. But we're going to add to those as we head into this upcoming weekend and next week. But Nina, we're in a snow drought as we talked about before. We've only had 9.7 inches in the Twin Cities, that's 14 inches below average for snow.
Duluth closer to 2 feet below. They've had 21 inches, should have had over 44. So 1 to 2 foot snow drought around Minnesota. We need some snow.
NINA MOINI: And I thought it was going to be La Nina this year Paul. So I'm wondering about the next few months. What are you forecasting?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and it is. It's a weak La Nina and that's having that impact on our temperatures, but we just haven't had the jet stream in the right spot for snow. That could change as we head into February, we will see about that. But it looks like the second half of winter probably will still be at normal for temperatures, so it should be plenty cold.
NINA MOINI: So you alluded to this warm up that we're having through Saturday, it sounds like, it sounds like it's going to be really mild.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it will through Friday, and I think this will qualify as a January thaw, that definition two consecutive days above 32 degrees. This would be the 14th straight year we've had a January thaw in the Twin Cities. It looks like we'll be around 30 for Thursday and 38 on Friday.
Rochester could hit 40 Friday afternoon. Nina, we get January thaws in 82% of years statistically. If you go back to 1873, the last year we didn't have one was 2011. And typically it happens in the second or third week of January. So we're right on schedule here. You mentioned last winter, that was the longest January thaw ever, 24 days, Nina, over three weeks.
NINA MOINI: I remember. Well, how cold is it going to get, though, again this weekend?
PAUL HUTTNER: This will be the coldest air mass so far this winter. It could be the coldest of winter, but we still have plenty of time to go. It's an Arctic front, it arrives Friday night into Saturday. Temperatures will fall Saturday down to 0 or below by Saturday night in the Twin Cities, and they'll stay there until noon Tuesday.
So we could have about 60 straight hours of subzero temperatures in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. How cold? Well, 10 to 15 below in the Twin Cities, probably Sunday morning, Monday morning, Tuesday morning, 20 to 30 below up North and our highs around five below it looks like Nina on Sunday and Monday. So this will be a real serious cold snap, but it won't be close to any records which are in the 30s to 40s below next week for the Twin Cities.
NINA MOINI: Well, I'm very excited for this because I have in my notes safe weather experiments in subzero temperatures. And I'm just wondering, what are those?
PAUL HUTTNER: Well, most of them are safe that I'm going to give you because living on the edge, that's what we do. Look, here's one of my favorite ones. It's really simple, it's great for kids. When it gets down below 0 or cold can blow ice bubbles. Just get the regular bubbles that you get with the little wand.
And when temperatures are that cold, especially if you get a calm wind or it's light wind, just go out, keep them inside, keep them warm, but then go out and blow some ice bubbles and just watch them and they'll drift through the air and they'll freeze right in front of you. And then sometimes when they fall and hit something, they'll shatter instead of just melt. So it's really, really cool to do that.
And the other thing is, and people do this but you have to be careful here, if you take hot water, even boiling water, put it like in your thermos or something, when it gets to be about 10 below, 14 below, you can go outside and you can whip it out into the air and that water will turn to gas. It'll vaporize. So it's a pretty interesting phenomenon. You've seen those probably on Twitter. It's pretty cool to do, but that's one you got to be careful.
NINA MOINI: I've done a lot of these when I was a morning television news reporter freezing your jeans, the banana hammer, freeze the banana then make a hammer. So I got a lot of tricks, but yeah, safety first everybody. Very interested also in your Climate Cast this week as well, Paul, what's it about?
PAUL HUTTNER: We're going to talk with a Twin Cities realtor who's helped some clients move to Minnesota from places like Florida, Texas, California. And some of the clients, one of the reasons they're moving, they're citing climate and climate change. It's just getting harder and harder to live in those places with the hotter temperatures, with hurricanes, with wildfires. So we're going to talk about that on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.
NINA MOINI: Looking forward to it. Thanks so much, Paul.
PAUL HUTTNER: My pleasure. Thanks, Nina.
NINA MOINI: That was MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner.
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