First today it’s really going to feel like April today with temperatures in the 40s and 50s across the region and a band of heavy rain and thunderstorms moving through the entire region during the course of the day. While many places will see over an half inch of precipitation, it will entirely fall as rain, ruining the dwindling snowpack north now ever further. Rain showers should be starting right about now (Monday morning) further south and reach further north by midday, tapering off about 3 hours later.

Tuesday will be sunny and warm again for most places, ahead of another low cutting across the region on Tuesday afternoon. This one will be more split in terms of precipitation type, with most southern and central Minnesota and Wisconsin once again seeing entirely rain, but much less amounts than on Monday. Further north, the colder air should start to filter in with the low, so a good chance that northern MN/WI see rain during the daylight hours on Wednesday before it switches over to snow on Wednesday night. Looks like with the low path and temperature profile, the north shore should see 3-6” of snow by Thursday afternoon while the south shore and UP will see closer to 1-2”.

Snowfall through Thursday

Things will quiet down again on Thursday further south, with temperatures not recovering as warm as it will be on Tuesday, but nonetheless still quite nice for February. North will see slightly less warm temperatures as the snowfall will probably not taper off until late Thursday morning and keep skies cloudy for most of the day.

Now for the exciting larger low on Friday morning. Right now almost all models agree that we should see a large low form in the lee of the Rockies on Thursday and move into Iowa by Friday morning. However, the models have not completely agreed on the track of the northerly stream of moisture with this low that will contain the heavy snow we have been waiting for anxiously.

The first disappointment with this low is going to be its track with it moving across Iowa and central Wisconsin. That, combined with the smaller area of snow on the north side of the low means that many places further north will be missing out on much of the snowfall, especially in Minnesota. Secondly, the low is in zonal flow and will be moving at quite the clip, so even places that do see snow will only get 12-18 hours of it, better than a clipper but not a long sustaining snow storm.

Low on Friday midday

That all being said, it looks like many places in southern Minnesota and southern/central Wisconsin could see 6-12” of snow by Saturday night. The gradient on the north side of the low will be very sharp with places in the Twin Cities and along the St Croix only looking like they could get 1-3” of snow. However, we are still 5 days away and any small shift north of the low track will quickly increase these numbers. As for the north shore and south shore, things look very gloomy withe only snow showers from this low, and with only 1-3” on the western half of the UP.

Snowfall through Saturday night

Will dig into the exact placement of the low later this week as we get closer to Friday.