textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Light wintry mix developing today into tonight. A winter weather advisory is in effect for a glaze of ice.

- A few systems moving along the Canadian border this weekend could bring less up to an inch of snow along with wind gusts of 30-40 mph Sunday.

UPDATE

Issued at 1132 AM CST Thu Dec 25 2025

While radar returns have been noted for the better part of the morning from Bemidji back northwest towards Hallock and north to Lake of the Woods nothing has yet been observed at the ground indicating there is still a dry layer near the surface that we need to saturate. Nevertheless forecast remains on track with freezing drizzle and glaze of ice still expected this afternoon/tonight.

UPDATE Issued at 612 AM CST Thu Dec 25 2025

Monitoring any low clouds across the area and seeing if they start advection more north/east. So question remains if/when freezing drizzle will start today. Higher chances remain more in north central MN tonight.

..Weekend

Next short wave trough will move east quickly along the Intl border with a weak surface low tracking along the border as well with cold front moving thru overnight Sat night. Overall the more outlier Canadian model with its stronger solution is now more closely aligned with mean ensembles given by ECMWF and GFS. This shows a band of light snow thru the area Sat overnight into Sunday morning east. But amounts look quite light....probs of 0.5 inch 40 percent along the border to 10 percent south. Probs for more than 1 inch from all ensembles and NBM single digits. There will be a period of cold advection and gusty northwest winds to 35 kts Sunday behind this system, but likely after any falling snow ends. With snow on the ground currently not blowable except for perhaps far northeast ND and northwest MN, any blowing snow issues will need to come from falling snow.

Blowing snow table given temps Sunday noon of 5 degrees and wind speed 30 kts indicate a 30 percent chance of advisory conditions due to blowing snow. Kept the 10 pct warning messaging but that is looking less likely as of now.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1132 AM CST Thu Dec 25 2025

Conditions will rapidly deteriorate as patchy MVFR/IFR become widespread LIFR to locally VLIFR shutting down many local airports for the coming 12-18 hours. As freezing drizzle ramps up along and east of the valley this afternoon CIGS widely will be under 500ft and VIS under 2SM. Improvements to IFR expected 12z with some maybe creeping back into MVFR by Friday afternoon.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...Winter Weather Advisory until 6 AM CST Friday for NDZ008-016- 027-029-030-039. MN...Winter Weather Advisory until 6 AM CST Friday for MNZ001>004- 007-008-013>016-022-023-027-028-030-031. Winter Weather Advisory from 3 PM this afternoon to 6 AM CST Friday for MNZ005-006-009-017-024-032.