Snow winds down, good travel conditions Wednesday

The weather system responsible for the 2 to 4 inches of snow in southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin is weakening and moving well to our east.

Some snow amounts include:

3.7 inches at Rochester

2.8 inches at Lacrescent

2.0 inches in Winona

You can search the list of snow reports from the National Weather Service in Lacrosse.

Meanwhile, clouds persisted over the Midwest with temperatures some 15 to 20 degrees above normal. The overcast has resulted in a very small gap between the high and the low temperatures. So far today the high has been 35 at Duluth with a low of 33.

Snow has also accumulated a couple of inches along the shores of Lake Superior, where Cornucopia in Bayfield County, Wisconsin reported 3 inches of snow.

I was on vacation last week and according to a blog post from Paul Huttner I missed the sunshine. The Minnesota Climatology Working Group reported on Facebook this afternoon that the period from Dec. 1 to Dec. 22 was the gloomiest spell for December since 1962.

There is no invasion of arctic air in the wake of this minor snow system. Tonight's overcast will hold temperatures some 15 to 20 degrees above normal.

Here's the lows from last night and early this morning. Temperatures may have slipped a bit since these readings were reported at 6 a.m. CST.

On this date in 2013, the low temperature was 23 below zero at Grand Forks, North Dakota. Their low today is the 4 p.m. temperature of 31.

There is the potential for a band of light snow to form over central Minnesota on Christmas afternoon, otherwise pretty good travel weather is expected locally for Wednesday and Christmas.

On Wednesday morning I'll share my thoughts on Friday's snow chances as the models enfold. Currently accumulations are not expected to amount to much. Colder air invades the state during the darkness hours on Friday night.

Sunshine may make an appearance on Saturday. But I'm not going to overpromise given the trend this month.

The 8- to 14-day outlook taking us into the first week of January indicates colder weather returns. We are due and it's fairly common for intrusions of arctic air between Christmas and New Years. At least that's what my wife tells me.

You can see how a trip to Naples, Florida is popular for snow birds.

The Climate Prediction Center shuffled the weather cards and posted this outlook for temperatures for the months of January through March 2015.

I'll take equal chances of above or below normal at this stage of winter. We had a good run of relatively mild temperatures so far this month.