Douglas: Plowable snow possible this weekend

All droughts eventually come to an end, including snow droughts. Gazing at the maps, I sense Minnesota’s snow drought will come to a screeching, plow-scraping end looking out one to two weeks.

As of yesterday, only 10.9 inches had fallen at MSP since September. St. Cloud has a 10.4-inch snowfall deficit, and nearly 2 feet at Rochester.

The weather pendulum eventually swings in the opposite direction. I only see an inch of snow today, but plowable 3- to 5-inch amounts are possible Saturday (possibly more north of the metro) with a few more inches around midweek. By the middle of next week, much of Minnesota will FINALLY have enough snow to play on: skiing, sledding, snowball fights, etc.

Weather models are always contradictory, but there is unusual disagreement between NOAA’s models and the ECMWF (European) model. NOAA’s GFS model brings 30s back into the state by mid-February. ECMWF keeps us in single digits and teens, with numerous subzero nights.

I’m leaning toward the ECMWF (colder) solution, but I’ll be delighted if the (milder) GFS is right.