textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- There is relatively high confidence in fog forming along and east of the Red River throughout northwest Minnesota tonight.

- There remains strong synoptic predictability in a pattern change early next week with the potential for accumulating snow and travel impacts Tuesday through Thursday.

- Conditions remain favorable in the near term for above average temperatures through the weekend with a low potential hydrologic impacts related to snowmelt.

..Synopsis

Synoptic agreement remains strong among ensemble members indicating relatively high synoptic predictability through early next week. The current zonal flow 0in the northern stream of the CONUS split flow regime will bring another low amplitude shortwave across the area today with another weak wave cresting the quickly eastward propagating southwestern US ridge this weekend. Pacific troughing is then expected to arrive in a pair of distinct vorticity maxima (one in southern/central California and one in BC/Washington) by Monday. These are currently modeled to remain separate waves but there remains scenarios where they do phase which would significantly alter the forecast. Assuming that doesnt happen though the first wave would likley eject into the central/northern plains Tuesday amid hybrid zonal/SW flow aloft. The second trough remains fixed back in the PNW with shortwave activity permeating east through northern tier states with low confidence in the potential for impacts from any of these waves. Most ensembles members seem to develop Plains/Southeast ridging toward the end of next week though significant amplitude differences remain decreasing confidence in temperature and precipitation trends beyond next Wednesday.

- Fog Tonight

The current ribbon of fog situated up the western side of the Red River as of 1 PM seems surprisingly well modeled by the 12z HREF and increases confidence into tonight in the broadening and formation of fog across much of northwest Minnesota. Things look to begin expanding as the sun sets with much of the eastern Valley seeing fog expanding by 6pm and a greater than 60% chance for visibility < 0.25sm east of the Red River east into Wadena and north to Bemidji and Lake of the Woods. There may very well be a need for another dense fog advisory tonight but will wait until this evening as things get going just to get some confirmation in it happening as this is not the first night in the last week fog has been forecast to form but never materialized. Fog looks to breakup or least become more patchy beginning around noon Friday.

- Warm Friday to Sunday

A quick moving clipper to our north on Saturday will bring westerly downslope winds to southeast North Dakota with favorably clear skies atop a greatly eroded snowpack the from the last few days of warmth. All together this should lead to some local over achieving on high temps with something closer to the NBM 75-90 possible from Valley City to Fargo and south to the SD border. This would place daily high temperatures in the low 50s which would near or beat currently daily records. Note daily records down there are only in the mid 40s on Saturday vs records in the low to mid 50s on Friday and Sunday thus the lack of talk about nearing records on those days despite similarly warm temperatures.

- Winter Impact Potential

Our first chance at more than a dusting of snow for a majority of the area in what will have been over 2 weeks comes Tuesday into Thursday next week. Considerable uncertainty remains in a few facets of the system but can really be boiled down to just a few points.

Track) A more southerly track would likely result in a likely weaker upper low and surface low and less QPF across the area. A more northerly track would bring a stronger system in general and more QPF. Conversely these tracks also tie into the second point.

Speed of the system) with a weaker system having less downstream blocking and thus departing the area faster vs a stronger system having more blocking and lingering longer.

Looking at some probabilities and trying to avoid the hype that some deterministic solutions have been showing we see the broad uncertainty that exists in QPF and snowfall. At the 25th percentile (NBM 4.3) with around 0.1" QPF/1" snowfall and the 75th percentile at 0.5-0.75" QPF/6-10" snowfall. As can be noted by the wide range the potential for one of our bigger snowfall events of the winter clearly exists but the potential for this to also be an afterthought and bust is very much real as well. The forecast will evolve and this range will undoubtedly narrow and converge on a solution, we just simply dont have the information at this time to tell in which direction it trends. Please continue to monitor the forecast if you have travel plans or could be impacted by other means, but also be sure to follow trusted sources and not just those screaming the loudest from the rooftop :)

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 502 PM CST Thu Feb 12 2026

Fog appears likely to develop in northwest Minnesota with the most likely impacted site TVF. GFK and BJI may be impacted by fog as well, although the probability is lower so it was not added to the routine TAF issuance. This should remain the only aviation impact other than stratus, and would bring flight categories down to IFR/LIFR/VLIFR overnight. We should start to see improvements after sunrise tomorrow, wherein light and variable winds will continue to prevail, although fog/stratus may linger into late morning/early afternoon.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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