The rumors are true. Some snow is on the way. Outrageous for late February, huh?
On The Edge. The Twin Cities metro is right on the edge of NOAA's Winter Storm Warning. A warning means potentially treacherous conditions are imminent. The farther north you drive tonight or tomorrow the heavier the snowfall amounts will be.
NOAA Snowfall Prediction. The Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service is forecasting about 5-8", which strikes me as being in the right range. More north, less south, with a cool foot from near Fergus Falls to Brainerd and Duluth.
The first shot of snow struck central and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin today with some 5-10" amounts. The MSP metro hasn't seen much, but this is just a skimpy appetizer.
The cold, crystalline main course comes tomorrow, as a more potent surge of moisture interacts with air temperatures in single digits and teens to produce a light, powdery, wind-whipped snowfall that should be plowable in the MSP metro, and somewhere between plowable and crippling up north.
A few deep winter storm thoughts:
OK, not so deep. It's Monday and a holiday so I'm missing my nap writing this, but here is what is going through my head.
Most of us tend to get caught up in the How-Many-Inches Lottery. We fixate on an in-amount, when we should be factoring inches, winds and temperatures! Cold storms are more dangerous than mild storms (20s and low 30s) because salt has a very hard time melting snow at temperatures much below 15-20F. Tuesday will be cold, snowfall will be fluffy, powdery and perfect - for skiing on. Driving? Even though it won't be THAT much snow in the metro I expect conditions to be pretty bad. This winter storm will punch above its weight.
3km NAM Snowfall Prediction. NOAA's high-resolution NAM prints out about 6-8" of powder for the metro, with some 20" amounts up north. Keep in mind this is a snowfall total of today and Tuesday's accumulation.
European Model. Inga says hi, by the way. ECMWF is a little less aggressive than GFS or NAM in the metro area with closer to 6" of snow, but places the axis of heaviest snow close to where NOAA's models show the heaviest amounts, from near Alexandria and Brainerd to Mille Lacs and Duluth into far northern Wisconsin.
Winter Storm Severity Index (WSSI). Meteorologists love to rate weather threats. A 0-5 scale works pretty well for hurricanes and tornadoes, why not winter storms. NOAA's WSSI Scale suggests moderate impacts for the Twin Cities metro with major impacts over much of central Minnesota and far northern Wisconsin. A much bigger deal up north, but even here - not quite the end of the world. Yet.
Hope. It's been a pretty hard winter, at least since the holidays - consistently cold with very few thaws or breaks. But NOAA's GFS model (consistently) predicts a nice thaw as we head into March. Within a week or so I hope we turn a BIG corner.
To review: Plowable snowfall tomorrow for the metro, a cold storm and travel will be slow. Heavier amounts the farther north you go with a band of 10-20" over much of central Minnesota. The MSP metro area? I'm thinking 4-8". 2-4" for far southern Minnesota, 4-5" south metro, maybe half a foot for the downtowns and closer to 6-8" for some of our northern suburbs. Deep breaths. This too shall pass. But fast enough for many.
Be safe out there...