Unlike two years ago when the Upper Midwest saw clipper after clipper move south out of Canada, this year is starting to look like the opposite. As we’ve now had 3 weeks in a row with the storm track sticking to moving northeastern out of the Midwest and catching mostly Iowa on it’s way east.

Regardless, it looks like another low is on its way right for Thanksgiving Day. How far north it ends up reaching is still a moving target. Over the past model runs, the bulls eye of the highest snow amounts has been as far north as Rochester, Minnesota… and as far south as the Iowa border. Not that large of a spread, but seeing that last week’s storm brought over a foot to Cedar Rapids and nothing north of Mankato, a few dozen miles matters.

That all being said, it looks like the best chance for snow will be a swath cutting across southern Minnesota and into central Wisconsin. However, this low has a lot less oomph than last week’s, so the highest amounts should only be in the 2-4” range unfortunately. As for outside this area, temperature should stay on the cooler side through the rest of the week and into the weekend to give most areas a chance to catch up on snowmaking. So at least there is a bit of an upside.

Another southern storm track, snowfall through Saturday morning. Credit: WeatherBell

As for looking ahead to next week, another low follows almost the exact same track and strength Monday night, maybe being even a little further north. However, with how each of these storms have had such small areas of actual snow accumulation, not going to speculate too much on who will exactly be getting the bulk of the snow early next week.

Nonetheless, it might have taken a bit longer for it to start feeling like winter in the Upper Midwest, but it’s slowing coming. However, with El Nino conditions in full force, it looks like we might be in store for the winter of the Southern Storms.

Andrew