Upper Midwest Daily Snow
By Andrew Murray, Technical Founder & Meteorologist Posted 8 years ago February 1, 2016
Here it comes! — kinda
Remember last week when I said a big storm was on track for us this week. Well all of the cards seem to have fallen into place, at least for some parts of the Upper Midwest.
Things are starting to shape up for a decent low to pull through the Upper Midwest during the day on Tuesday and into the night. While the low track keeps slightly shifting northwest, the models have varied very little in strength for this storm. This issue with this storm will be that a somewhat narrow band will determine the difference between over a foot of snow and being closer to the 3-6” range. Going off the GFS and Euro models that came in this morning, it looks like this line will set up over extreme southeastern Minnesota and then up through central Wisconsin and the UP.
This map is from the NWS NDFD forecast this morning, and I agree with it mostly. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see higher amounts shift slightly more north. Honestly, this could be one of those storms where 20 miles can be the difference between a couple of inches one way or the other. Regardless, it looks like at least some of us (sorry northern Minnesota) get a decent winter storm.
As for the rest of the week, another shortwave pulls down from Canada on Thursday bringing a chance of snow showers to the entire region. However, accumulations will barely total more than an inch anywhere.
Friday night another clipper low could make it’s way south enough to effect the area, but the models have been all over the place with how far south it will actually get with the GFS keeping it along the Canadian border and the Euro dragging it right through central Minnesota and Wisconsin. Regardless, it’s still a clipper and snowfall amounts won’t be more than an inch or two in spots.
The next thing that get me really excited is a large clipper that the both models have coming straight through Minnesota and Wisconsin to close out next weekend. However, my confidence in how this system will play out is a bit reserved, starting with the fact that the GFS has it coming through as two lows on Sunday and the Euro has it coming through Monday and much slower. We will have to wait through the week a bit more to see how it plays out!
Enjoy the snow tomorrow!
Andrew