Latest forecast models still see plowable snow Friday night into Saturday

We’re tracking the forecast model runs for snow Friday night into early Saturday.

Winter storm watches cover most of central and southern Minnesota Friday night into Saturday. (See the map above.)

Thursday’s forecast runs suggest a faster, slightly weaker system than they did Wednesday. But the latest 18Z model runs still crank out significantly to have snow for much of central Minnesota, including the greater Twin Cities area.

Here’s a little forecasting inside baseball. We don’t always trust the 18Z runs as much as the primary 12Z or 00Z runs, but the trends are interesting. They’re not ready to give up on a significant band of heavy snow across central Minnesota into the Twin Cities.

Check out The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 18Z High-Resolution Rapid Refresh model snowfall output:

The earlier 12Z runs of NOAA’s Global Forecast System model and the European models reduced the snow totals in the primary band to between about 2 and 6 inches.

So it seems for now the best range for snowfall in the heaviest snow zone probably lies between about 3 and 7 inches including the greater Twin Cities area.

But this system will have a very high snow-to-water content ratio of probably around 20-to-1. That means a good environment for bigger fluffy stellar dendrites to form, which can stack up more efficiently to produce higher snowfall totals here on the ground.

The latest NOAA digital snowfall output for central Minnesota suggests a band of between 4 and 7 inches across our region with less to the north and south:

Could this system still be a bust from the latest snowfall projections? Yes, it’s still possible if the storm track continues southward and faster.

Stay tuned to see what the forecast models do overnight and Friday before the snow flies for real Friday night.