textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Snow showers accompanied by gusty winds will cause blowing snow through today. This will sharply reduce visibility impacting travel conditions, and a winter weather advisory is in effect.

- Wind chill values fall into the range of 30 below zero to 40 below zero Saturday morning and Monday morning

- Potential for another impactful system Sunday with a 60% chance for greater than 1" of snow in northwest MN and wind gusts over 45 mph.

UPDATE

Issued at 646 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

Hearing reports from those in the field on our partner webinars is that it is bad at times, but not shut down the world bad. So therefore the messaging we have been giving over the past 48 hours is working out as anticipated. Variable conditions. Area of moderate snow with wind gusts over 40 mph is in Minnesota attm roughly from Mahnomen, Crookston to east of Moorhread. This area in terms of visibilities remains the poorest. If we could do polygon blizzard warnings that would be idea as we could draw in the eastern RRV along Hwy 75 as that area with 330 degree winds is often the worst and slowest to improve. Otherwise radar and obs show very light snowfall in NE ND into S Manitoba and wind gusts overall lessening and vsbys improving.

..Saturday night-Sunday

Beyond this ongoing system is another well modeled clipper that will move through Sunday with an EFI signal stronger than todays over the area for wind signaling the potential for winds of upwards of 50 mph. While the QPF signal is less than todays system, NBM probs for greater than 1" are still as high as 60% for the northern RRV and northwest Minnesota. Taking into account air temps in the single digits during falling snow would say warning impacts are certainly possible but only during falling snow as there is a low chance to achieve the magical 2" threshold for prolonged blowing after the falling component ceases. For areas of eastern ND that don't see any falling snow an EFI signal of 0.9 (as is currently being shown) or higher typically correlates well with high wind warning criteria. Combined with the shift of tails indicating the higher end outliers still present in ensemble guidance. Certainly dont want skip over todays system but there may be another notable/impactful one on its heels come Sunday that is worth mentioning. Timing of the main impacts looks to be Sunday morning into the late evening coinciding with the strong cold air advection with the attendant cold front as the trough drops south.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 646 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

TAFs today, esp this morning, highly variable in the vsby due to blowing snow impacts. Overall improving conditions as worst is in Fargo area as best cold advection in that area. But it will be a day of varying vsby at all locations. Gusty winds too, 30-40 kts, but some obs will have no gusts.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...Winter Weather Advisory until 6 PM CST this evening for NDZ006>008-014>016-024-026>030-038-039-049-052>054. MN...Winter Weather Advisory until 6 PM CST this evening for MNZ001>009-013>017-022>024-027>032-040.