A cold Saturday, then mild on Sunday; really cold on New Year’s Day

Thursday's rain on top of Wednesday's snow created a slushy mess in the Twin Cities metro area.  In locations that weren't shoveled or plowed, that slush quickly froze on Friday as temperatures dropped.

Don't expect any of that ice to melt on Saturday.

Temperature trends

This is a cold airmass that's settling in over Minnesota.

Lows late Friday night into early Saturday are expected to reach the 20s below zero in parts of northeastern Minnesota. The remainder of northern Minnesota, plus western Minnesota, will see teens below zero. Single digits below zero will be common elsewhere in Minnesota, including around the edges of the Twin Cities metro area.  The downtown areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul should stay slightly above zero.

There'll be just enough wind to drop wind chills into the -25 to -35 range in western Minnesota and parts of northeastern Minnesota, where wind chill advisories run from Friday evening through early Saturday morning:

"Tonight" in the graphic refers to the overnight hours Friday night into early Saturday.

Parts of northwestern Minnesota could see wind chill temps close to -40.

Saturday afternoon highs will be in the teens across most of Minnesota, with some lower 20s southeast:

Some spots in the metro area will see upper teens.

Our average high temp this time of year is 24 degrees in the Twin Cities metro area.

Highs recover nicely on Sunday, with 20s in the far north and lower 30s elsewhere:

Twin Cities metro area highs are expected to reach 30 on Monday, then arctic chill reaches the metro Monday night.

Metro area highs on New Year's Day might only hit about 7 degrees! Twin Cities highs rebound to 20 degrees next Wednesday and lower 30s on Thursday.

Snow chances

The northern third of Minnesota could see some light snow on Sunday.

The best chance of snow on Monday will be in northern and west-central Minnesota, but the Twin Cities metro area and southeastern Minnesota could see some snow showers Monday afternoon and Monday evening.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s North American Mesoscale forecast model shows the potential precipitation pattern from Sunday through Monday afternoon:

The color chart to the right of the loop refers to the strength of the signal that returns to the radar, not to the amount of snow.

As always, updated weather information can be heard on the Minnesota Public Radio Network, and you will also see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

Final snowstorm tally

From Wednesday evening into early Thursday, the snow total at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was 2.9 inches. The metro area saw rain throughout most of Thursday, followed by .2 of an inch of snow at MSP airport early Friday morning.  The storm total at MSP airport was 3.1 inches of snow.

There were many double-digit snow totals from west-central Minnesota into northeastern Minnesota. The highest report was 24 inches (!) of new snow 3 miles east of Finland, in northeastern Minnesota. They measured 19.2 inches about 7 miles north of McGregor, in Aitkin county. There was a report of 14.5 inches near Carlos, in Douglas county, while Ortonville reported 15 inches.

You can check snow accumulations for Minnesota and western Wisconsin as they are posted by the NWS.  The NWS map looks like this:

If you go to the NWS page after 6 a.m. Saturday, you can click on the “last 72 hours” tab in the upper left corner of the page to include snow reports that arrived Thursday morning. Hover over a location on the snow map on the NWS site to see the snow total and the time of observation.

The NWS also has this snowfall map:

I'm thinking that kids in central Minnesota are very happy right now, since they had seen very little snow for sledding this winter.