As spring blizzard marches across southern Minnesota, what's next in the forecast?

NINA MOINI: Snow is falling right now in Southeastern Minnesota. That area is under a blizzard warning, but the storm, you may have seen in the metro, missed the metro and the rest of the state largely. Joining me now is MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner. Paul, what's the latest here with this snowfall?

PAUL HUTTNER: Hey, Nina. Yeah, watching Doppler as always here. It's snowing heavily now in Southern Minnesota, Albert Lea, Rochester. We've got thunder snow across the border in Iowa. And I'm seeing lightning strikes right now around Austin and Albert Lea, along I-90 in Southern Minnesota. That's the area where we're seeing 1 to 2 inch per hour snowfall rates right now, so the northern edge of that snow.

And the storm's zagged a little on the models yesterday. So it's just south of the Twin Cities from about Faribault to Red Wing to Menominee. If you're heading on I-94 east into Wisconsin, you'll hit snow about Menominee. South of the Twin Cities, it's Faribault on I-35. And then it gets heavy from Owatonna down through Albert Lea, back to about, well, the Fairmont area and then through Rochester, Nina.

So that's the real focus of this storm. That's where the heaviest snow is and the wind gusting to 41 at this hour in Rochester. But we'll see gusts to 55 miles an hour today. We've already got a couple inches of snow down in that whole area. And we'll add another 4 to 8 inches by the time this is done later today and tonight. Blizzard warnings in effect for that whole tier of counties in Southern Minnesota along I-90, from Fairmont through Albert Lea, Austin, into Rochester, a little bit north of the Winona area as well. That's until 10:00 tonight.

And then winter weather advisories about as close as Red Wing and Mankato. So this is a pretty gnarly storm, definitely blizzard conditions. I looked at some of the MnDOT cams. There's a couple inches of sloppy snow. Temperatures are just below freezing. But it's going to be gnarly there through the rest of today and this evening.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and I know they had remote school or taken the day off school in some areas. And people were thinking, what's going on? It's not snowing. And now-- [LAUGHS]

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, yeah.

NINA MOINI: --now they're getting it. But so when you are forecasting the weather, Paul, you look at several models of different examples of what may come to fruition. Can you explain what they said about this storm?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, and this storm was a study in model differences, to be sure. Now, you hear us talk about the European model, right? It's statistically the most accurate model on Earth. But it's not always right. It is usually first to kind of see trends with things happening. And it was pretty good this week, even though the Euro shifted a little bit south as the week went on. But NOAA also has a suite of models that we look at. And to be quite honest, this was a bad week for NOAA's models.

NINA MOINI: Ooh.

PAUL HUTTNER: They kept pushing the storm up into the Twin Cities, bringing heavy snow here, right up until about 24 hours before the storm, before they finally caught it and moved it south. But that's not a great performance when you're trying to get a lead time of a few days on a snowstorm.

And it wasn't just the GFS. There's a model called the GFS that a lot of us talk about as being one of the worst models of NOAA. It was the entire suite of NOAA models. So interesting to watch this week. Not a great week for NOAA and the forecast models. Here's another interesting trend, though. Some of these models now are starting to incorporate AI into them.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

PAUL HUTTNER: It's not there yet in terms of accuracy, but it does show promise. Really, Nina, still, the most accurate forecast is the better forecast models that we use, like the European models, plus experienced meteorologists who know how to read them and know how to see the trends. So that's kind of where the most accurate weather forecasts lie these days.

NINA MOINI: That is fascinating. I would much rather hear the weather from you than AI. [CHUCKLING]

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. Well, remember, NOAA, they had the automated voice, and the first voice they ever had was Paul. So I'm hoping that's a good sign.

NINA MOINI: Oh, my gosh. [LAUGHS] That's funny. So I was thinking-- I was getting ready to say we really needed this in the Twin Cities, but now we didn't get any of that precipitation. But will the storms help in other areas of the state with drought?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it will, especially in Southeast Minnesota, where they're getting a good soaking today. They'll get an inch of liquid moisture. So that helps. Most of Minnesota is still in drought. You're right. We kind of forget about it a little bit during the winter. But 70% of Minnesota is in drought. And the worst part of that is across North Central Minnesota, kind of the headwaters of the Mississippi, Bemidji, Walker, and then Southwest Minnesota, Madison, Lac qui Parle County, Yellow Medicine County. There's no drought in the Northern Twin Cities.

NINA MOINI: Oh.

PAUL HUTTNER: It's just abnormally dry in much of the Twin Cities. So better news here. But this active pattern, Nina, we've been getting about a storm a week in different parts of Minnesota, dropped an inch of moisture last week around the Twin Cities. And the pattern looks active for the next week or two. So this is good because it will help produce a little more snow. I think we'll get more snow in Northern Minnesota on Sunday, and then liquid moisture that will melt or fall as rain. And we'll keep kind of chipping away at the drought here, hopefully, as we move through spring.

NINA MOINI: OK. And before I let you go, Paul, I do want to know what's on Climate Cast this week.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, we've heard a lot about NOAA budget cuts, the staff cuts, and budget cuts. And we certainly could use more help with the model forecast, to be sure. But what are really the impacts, and what's happening there, we're going to talk about that and how it might affect not only weather forecasting but climate research.

John Abraham is a professor with the University of St. Thomas. He's a frequent Climate Cast contributor. And we'll chat with him tomorrow about all that's happening with NOAA and budgets these days.

NINA MOINI: All right, Paul, thanks so much.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That's MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner.