Christmas storm lingers into Tuesday and Wednesday

Updated 10:15 a.m.

Our Christmas rain storm lingers into Tuesday and Wednesday with scattered rain showers turning to snow showers. Temperatures will be cooler but remain above normal.

Scattered rain showers turning to scattered snow showers

It’s been a soggy holiday stretch. The rainfall total is up to 1.60 inches at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Several spots in the west metro and central Minnesota have had more than 3 inches of rainfall since Saturday.

Five different temperature records were set over the last few days: two record high temps for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and three record warm overnight lows Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday nights.

The bulk of rain will be in central and northern Minnesota through much of the day Tuesday. We’ll see scattered snow showers develop by late in the day into Wednesday in southern Minnesota as moisture rotates counterclockwise around the center of the storm system.

Temperatures are generally warm enough for rain Tuesday morning, but pockets of far northern Minnesota are below freezing and creating the potential for some freezing rain.

Colder air is wrapping into the system from the south, opposite of what one might normally expect as a chunk of cold follows the storm center, rotating around counterclockwise.

Precipitation will turn to scattered snow showers across southern Minnesota late Tuesday into Tuesday night and eventually statewide Wednesday. Any snowfall accumulation will be light.

Gale warnings persist Tuesday on Lake Superior where waves were forecast to be as high as 15 feet and decreasing through the day.

Highs Tuesday will be mostly in the 40s and 30s and remain above normal through the week.

It will be cooler by the weekend, but temperatures overall remain above normal this week into the start of January.