Instant spring: 50s to near 60 degrees next week

It's over.

The winter of 2014-15 as we know it ended Friday afternoon as a strengthening March sun boosted temperatures to near 40 degrees in the metro.

Now we watch as a series of milder Pacific warm fronts nudges thermometers higher in the coming days. Vanishing snow cover and sun intensity equal to Oct. 4 by this weekend synchronize to turbo charge the warm-up next week.

Welcome to early spring 2015 in Minnesota.

• 39 degrees high at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Friday

• 25 days - last above freezing temp at MSP ( 33 degrees on Feb. 9)

• Warmest day in 39 days (since 45 degrees on Jan. 26)

• Spring forward - clocks ahead 1 hour Saturday night

• Sunset 7:10 pm Sunday!

Jet stream winds blowing off the Pacific for the first time in 6 weeks shove a bubble of warmth into Minnesota through next week. Above, temperature departures from average Monday from the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer.

Below, new colors of yellow over Minnesota indicate an air mass capable of 50s in the metro, and even an isolated 60 degree temps across southern Minnesota by early next week.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model continues to lead the charge on the magnitude of the coming warming trend next week. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Forecast System underestimated Friday's warm-up by about 5 degrees. Score one for the European model already.

With rapidly vanishing snow cover and persistent westerly breezes I am more convinced than ever that 50s are highly likely next week, and I'm starting to think a few 60 degree temps will pop up in Minnesota next week. NOAA's digital forecast output numbers below for Tuesday are a few degrees too conservative in my opinion.

If everything goes just right, the southwest Twin Cities suburbs may touch 60 degrees next week.

Vanishing snow cover

I am amazed at how fast a couple of inches of snow vanished Friday afternoon in the southwest metro. The combination of strong sun, temps near 40 degrees and a dry breeze acted like Minnesota's own mini-Chinook.

Here a wider look from space via NASA's MODIS-Terra satellite. Friday's 250-meter resolution visible image clearly shows the lack of snow cover west of the Twin Cities.

Deeper snow up to 7 inches still blankets Rochester in the lower right corner of the image. Click on this image and zoom in. There's a lot of really cool detail here including frozen lakes and rivers.

 Plenty of snow up north

There's still plenty of snow to play in up in northern Minnesota along the Gunflint Trail, near Ely and from International Falls to Duluth. Rochester and southeast Minnesota still has 7 to 8 inches of deep snow as well.

Still, snow cover overall is below seasonal average in most of Minnesota.

That's why I am still concerned about the potential for drought as we head into an unusually warm and mostly dry early March weather pattern. You can see from this week's updated U.S. Drought Monitor that all but the southeast tip of Minnesota is already in "pre-drought" mode.

The precipitation outlook for the next two weeks favors continues dry conditions over the Upper Midwest.

The longer range outlook favors growing drought potential over Minnesota this spring.

Minnesota has been bailed out, even flooded out by the recent trend toward wetter spring periods in recent years. One of these years, the spring rains are bound to fail.

Call it the law of averages. I am hopeful the pattern will shift once the frost leaves the ground, and we get some good soaking rains. But my weather spidey senses still tell me we are vulnerable to growing drought potential this spring.

Stay tuned, and enjoy the warm-up!