textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Pattern remains active with multiple chances for accumulating snow.

UPDATE

Issued at 1145 PM CDT Sun Mar 8 2026

MU CAPE around 250 J/kg helped showers and thunderstorms become fairly stout for early March this evening in the northern Red River Valley and northwestern MN. A bit of pea to half inch hail and some wind gusts to 50 mph produced, but on a downward trend as the better instability moves off to the east. Temps have started dropping in northeastern ND behind the cold front, but still mostly in the low 30s and much of the snow precipitation is still well to our north in Canada. At this point, not expecting any impacts on the cold side of the system until tomorrow night.

After tonights shortwave, another vort/jet max comes into the Northern Plains Monday night. There are signs of some strong frontogenetical forcing in southern ND, but pretty fast moving. Probabilities for anything over an inch are around 30 percent, so not too much for impacts. The active pattern continues into the upcoming week, but precip tracks are all over the place and hard to gauge exactly how much our CWA will see.

UPDATE Issued at 658 PM CDT Sun Mar 8 2026

Increased cloud cover a bit as there has been more mid and high clouds even south of the main frontal boundary just north of the international border. Even with clouds in and out, southwest winds and warm air advection have boosted readings into the lower 60s in southeastern ND.

..EXTENDED THROUGH NEXT WEEKEND

The period will remain active with highly amplified flow across the CONUS. We remain situated in the northern periphery of a very large cutoff low with 500mb flow approaching 100 knots. This is contributing to our frequent changes in temperature and frequent chances for light precipitation. We are stuck in this pattern because of a low over the Baja of California currently rotating on its own. There is high confidence that this will eventually kick out northeastward, but until then expect more of these quick moving events and oscillations in temperature.

The first chance for precipitation after today will be Tuesday as strong frontogenesis works eastward embedded within the flow. Cyclonic vorticity advection isn't particularly strong, but the strong mesoscale forcing should create some unorganized banding of snowfall across our south. Due to the mesoscale nature of this, there is high uncertainty in the location of this, but it does appear like accumulating snow will be likely somewhere in the southern half of our area. Moisture content is fairly light so the reasonable worst case scenario would be areas receiving up to 4 inches of snow, but the most likely range is between 0 and 3 inches of snowfall. If synoptic forcing does improve, however, then these totals could go up. Regardless of this, it is not a guarantee that areas will receive snow given the mesoscale banding nature as stated above, so stay tuned for further updates.

We finally start to see the cutoff low over the southwest kick out, which will force ridging to develop to our west. This brings with it the chance for a clipper system that looks to deepen as it progresses eastward. This brings the threat for accumulating snow with the warm air advection region ahead of the main low and gusty winds on the backside, but any blowing snow impacts are going to have to come from either falling snow (low predictability) or snow on the ground which should be extremely crusted over so this is very unlikely to cause any issues as well. As such, the probability for warning type impacts is very low with only a low chance for advisory impacts, which should mainly arise from accumulating snow.

Finally, there is a strong ensemble agreement for a system next weekend but with very low predictability in impacts based on model spread in location. Right now, stay tuned as this one would have the best shot for higher moisture content based on the upper flow pattern, which does create the potential for additional accumulating snow impacts.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 1145 PM CDT Sun Mar 8 2026

VFR conditions at all spots except KDVL which has seen some MVFR ceilings start to move in behind the cold front. Some IFR ceilings upstream of KTVF in the northern Red River Valley, so could see a brief period below 1000 ft. Other locations are less certain on timing, but should see some period of MVFR conditions late tonight into tomorrow. Winds will shift around to the northwest tonight behind a cold front, with some gusts up to 25 kts at times. Winds will decrease in speed during the day tomorrow, with KDVL eventually shifting around to the northeast and east.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...None. MN...None.