Tuesday snow chance, but spring thaw on the way?

Winter goes out with one more respectable week, then the weather maps strongly hint at signs of (early) spring.

Temperatures dip below zero once again Friday morning for the 26th time this winter at MSP Airport. The coldest night for the rest of the winter in Minnesota? That looks likely.

In case you're wondering, our 26 days of at or below zero this winter is close to the average of 23 days, but nowhere near the 50 days we endured last winter.

One more arctic high pressure cell slides south Friday. Temperatures moderate as we work around the back side of the high and winds turn southerly this weekend. A deepening storm slides into California and the desert southwest with precious rain and mountain snow, then tracks mostly south of Minnesota with snow and ice from Iowa to Oklahoma.

One more wintry week?

Temperatures moderate, but still feel like winter for the next week. The Global Forecast System and European models are spinning up a potential snow system somewhere near Minnesota next Tuesday. It's too early to be clear on track and totals, but the potential for several inches of wet, plowable early March snow seems to be there.

The GFS version winds up a deepening surface low tracking through eastern Iowa Tuesday.

The early GFS snowfall output lays a band of potentially heavy snow close to the metro next Tuesday. But again, it's just too early to tell if this is weather fiction or fact. Early model depictions of storm tracks five days out can easily shift 100 miles or more.

Spring fever outbreak on the horizon?

Remember those first few mild sunny days in March when winds finally turn south? The Land of 10,000 new puddles? Stunned neighbors emerging from five months of hibernation?

You may not have to wait much longer to see those heartwarming (horrifying?) sites again.

The medium range forecast models suggest a significant pattern change starting the weekend of March 7-8. The upper air pattern shifts into a more zonal west-east flow as upper winds howl off the Pacific Ocean.

Remember that temperature trends are the most reliable when looking one to two weeks out. The models will flip flop on magnitude, but a string of highs well into the upper 30s and even some 40s looks increasingly likely to me by the week of March 8.

Spring days may indeed be right around the corner.

Hang in there...and stay tuned!