Mostly Sunny Thursday - Snow Chance Into The Weekend

A quiet, mostly sunny day awaits us on Thursday in the metro - and that sunshine will make it a bit deceiving in the temperature department. Morning temperatures will start in the upper teens with highs climbing to the upper 20s.

The sunniest skies across the state Thursday will be across northern Minnesota - but, even then, you'll be able to consider the day mostly sunny in southern Minnesota with just passing clouds. Highs will climb into the 20s for most locations. While still above average, these highs are at least closer to average than we were for most of December.

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Forecast loop from Noon Friday to 6 PM Saturday.

As we head toward the end of the week and the first half of the weekend, we will watch a system drop out of Canada that'll bring us our next shot of snowfall.

Friday: For Friday, we'll see a mostly cloudy day as that cold front dips into northern Minnesota, with an overnight snow chance in the metro. Highs will climb into the mid-30s.

Saturday: Cloudy skies will be around, with the best chances of snow during the second half of the day. Highs will be around freezing.

Sunday: We'll clear the snow out of the region, but keep the cloud cover around. Highs will be slightly cooler behind that system - only in the upper 20s.

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Forecast image for Noon next Tuesday.

As we head toward the first half of next week, we will be tracking the potential for a significant storm system impacting the central United States. While southern Minnesota could get clipped by the far northern part of the system, the track at the moment continues to be too far east to bring us the most impactful snow. That appears more likely to occur from Kansas City to the Quad Cities, Milwaukee/Chicago, and northern Michigan.

What appears to be certain is that the system that moves across the central United States next week will drag colder air into the region out of Canada. By late next week, highs are only expected to be in the teens, with potentially our first lows around 0F (if not subzero) for the winter season. The coldest low the metro has seen so far this winter was 8F back on November 28th. The coldest high was the day before - November 27th - at 21F.

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Next Week Will Actually Feel Like Winter
By Paul Douglas

Yesterday was the first time I've ever driven my (old/vintage) convertible in January. With the top up, of course. On Tuesday friend and boating enthusiast Bob Bilger went sailing on Lake Minnesota, the latest he's ever been out on the water. Golfing in December, when every day of the month was milder than average? Fascinating and a bit unsettling, as in "where am I living again?"

Snow and ice is part of Minnesota's ethos. Thousands of jobs and countless outdoor events depend on reliable snow and ice 4 months of the year.

We are sliding into a colder, more active pattern. No mega-storms yet, just a series of "five and dime storms", with credit to the Twin Cities National Weather Service. Well said. A coating of snow is possible Saturday night, maybe an inch or 2 Tuesday as a big storm tracks from Amarillo to Chicago. An inch or two next Thursday? I expect snow-covered lawns by late next week. Only 2 months late, but oh well.

I see teens late next week with lows near 0F. Ice-making weather is coming. Finally.

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Paul's Extended Twin Cities Forecast

THURSDAY: Partly sunny, brisk. Wake up 19. High 29. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind SW 8-13 mph.

FRIDAY: Cloudy, breezy and a bit milder. Wake up 25. High 34. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind S 10-15 mph.

SATURDAY: Coating of light snow possible. Wake up 28. High 33. Chance of precipitation 70%. Wind SW 7-12 mph.

SUNDAY: Peeks of sun, dry. Wake up 20. High 29. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind NW 10-20 mph.

MONDAY: Light snow PM hours. Wake up 18. High 28. Chance of precipitation 60%. Wind NE 8-13 mph.

TUESDAY: Quick inch of snow early. Wake up 22. High 25. Chance of precipitation 70%. Wind N 10-20 mph.

WEDNESDAY: Chilly with snow possible at night. Wake up 18. High 26. Chance of precipitation 20%. Wind SE 8-13 mph.

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Minneapolis Weather Almanac And Sun Data
January 4th

*Length Of Day: 8 hours, 53 minutes, and 33 seconds
*Daylight GAINED Since Yesterday: 1 minute and 1 second

*When Do We Climb Above 9 Hours Of Daylight? January 10th (9 hours, 1 minutes, 15 seconds)
*When Is The Latest Sunrise? December 30th-January 5th (7:51 AM)
*When Are Sunsets At/After 5 PM? January 18th (5:01 PM)
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This Day in Weather History
January 4th

1981: Air cold enough to freeze a mercury thermometer pours into Minnesota. Tower hits 45 below zero.

1971: A snowstorm moves through the Upper Midwest. Winona gets over 14 inches.

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On Thursday, a system in the Southwestern United States will produce snow in the Four Corners region with storms in the Southern Plains. A system working into the Pacific Northwest will bring rain and higher-elevation snowfall. Snow showers - some caused by lake effect - will occur in the Great Lakes and New England.

The heaviest rain through the end of the week will fall across portions of the Texas and Louisiana coast and areas just inland from there, where some 3"+ amounts will be possible.

The heaviest snow through the end of the week will be out in the western United States, where several mountain ranges could see at least 6-12" of snowfall.

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From NYC to DC and beyond, cities on the East Coast are sinking

More from Phys.org: "Major cities on the U.S. Atlantic coast are sinking, in some cases as much as 5 millimeters per year—a decline at the ocean's edge that well outpaces global sea level rise, confirms new research from Virginia Tech and the U.S. Geological Survey. Particularly hard hit population centers such as New York City and Long Island, Baltimore, and Virginia Beach and Norfolk are seeing areas of rapid "subsidence," or sinking land, alongside more slowly sinking or relatively stable ground, increasing the risk to roadways, runways, building foundations, rail lines, and pipelines, according to a study published today in the PNAS Nexus. "Continuous unmitigated subsidence on the U.S. East Coast should cause concern," said lead author Leonard Ohenhen, a graduate student working with Associate Professor Manoochehr Shirzaei at Virginia Tech's Earth Observation and Innovation Lab. "This is particularly in areas with a high population and property density and a historical complacency toward infrastructure maintenance.""

Could 2024 be a breakout year for the transmission grid?

More from Canary Media: "It's hard to solve a challenge as sprawling and complex as doubling or tripling the scale of the transmission grids across the U.S. in a little over a decade. But the country's climate and clean energy goals depend on it. Study after study has found the country can't build renewable energy at the pace needed to rapidly decarbonize the power grid without also building a massive amount of new power lines, fast. But over the past half-decade, grid growth has slowed, not accelerated, bogged down by conflicts over siting, permitting and paying for new transmission capacity. The sheer scale of growth needed is staggering. Achieving the Biden administration's goal of a zero-carbon grid by 2035 will require 75,000 miles of new high-voltage lines — enough to stretch from Los Angeles to New York City and back 15 times — according to an estimate from Princeton University's Repeat Project."

The US's first large-scale offshore wind farm just missed its first power delivery deadline

More from electrek: "Vineyard Wind 1 was supposed to deliver its first power to the Massachusetts grid by December 31 – but it didn't. ... On December 6, Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra said that its "team has worked tremendously hard, through nights, weekends, and holidays to put us in the position to deliver the first power from Avangrid's nation-leading Vineyard Wind 1 project before the end of the year." And it reiterated that deadline in a public newsletter on December 27. But an Avangrid spokesperson said this morning (via the Worcester Business Journal) that "the first of the project's 62 turbines generated power Sunday evening but that more testing was required before any wind power could be transmitted to the grid. The spokesman gave no new specific timeline for the delivery of first power.""

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Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

- D.J. Kayser