Wild weather weekend ahead: Balmy 70s, thunder, wind-whipped snow, cold
Potent spring storm rakes Minnesota Friday night into Saturday
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Welcome to the weather Disneyland we call Minnesota.
Here you can enjoy a volatile ride featuring balmy 70-degree temperatures, quickly crashing into heavy wind-whipped snow within a few hours.
First we enjoy two docile spring days. Highs Thursday will reach the 60s across southern Minnesota.
Friday brings our first 70-degree temperature to much of the south.
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Meteorologically speaking, our inbound storm is a beautiful comma-shaped beast swirling into the California coast Wednesday. Textbook.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Forecast System model paints the likely storm scenario as it spins across our region Friday into Saturday.
The forecast model loop below shows thunder cells in southern Minnesota at 6 p.m. Friday and heavy snow across far western Minnesota by 6 a.m. Saturday.
Friday night’s thunder cells will likely be strongest across southern Minnesota near the Iowa border. A marginal risk for severe storms packing high winds and some hail reaches as far north as the Twin Cities Friday evening.
Then the cold air will change rain to snow across western Minnesota.
Here’s the latest forecast discussion detail from The Twin Cities National Weather Service office:
This line of storms will drive north across the area Friday night, with a deformation band of precipitation beginning to develop over eastern SD and western MN as it does so. This deformation band will start as rain, but quickly transition over to snow from west to east Friday night. This will result in an axis of heavy snow near the MN/SD border. EPS probabilities for seeing at least 0.3" of QPF falling as snow (so 3" of snow with a 10:1 ratio) has the center of the snow axis running from roughly Huron, SD to Lake of the Woods, which means in the MPX CWA, we have potential for a “2 to 4 maybe more" type of snow setup west of a Granite Falls to Little Falls line. Add in northwest winds gusting to between 40 and 50 mph and we definitely have something that will need to be watched for winter headline potential Friday night/Saturday out west.
Highs Saturday will be in the 40s east to chilly 30s west.
Sunday brings winterlike cold statewide.
It looks like temperatures will rise back into the 40s and 50s next week.