textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- A wintry mix of freezing drizzle and light snow may impact travel conditions this afternoon into early evening.

- Bands of light snow will quickly traverse through the region tonight into Wednesday morning. Light accumulations up to 2 inches may still bring sub-advisory type impacts to the early morning commute.

..Light snow tonight into Wednesday morning

The next quick moving clipper-type feature to traverse the region comes late tonight into Wednesday morning. Temperatures will be cold enough behind the cold front to keep precipitation type as snow. Synoptic forcing associated with this snow is greatly lacking, if at all existent. Light snow tonight into Wednesday morning will almost be purely mesoscale-driven in the form of transient frontogenesis sliding southeast along the backdoor cold front. This will result in transient, unorganized yet elongated bands of light snow to move quickly across our area. While frontogenesis commonly can lead to 'higher end' snow amounts, this particular scenario is not one of them - mainly due to absence of more organized synoptic forcing and a thermodynamic profile that does promote high SLRs. Additionally, there is a deft in upright instability; however, there will be some slantwise instability available for the frontal circulation to utilize. Thus, there could be some transient burst of higher snow rates over localized areas.

Ultimately, snow accumulations from this snow is forecast to be in the half inch to around 2 inch range. With the potential of transient burst of moderate snowfall as well as accumulations between 1 to 2 inches, sub-advisory impacts are possible (50%). This may impact the early morning commute, as even lightly accumulating snow and visibility reductions near half a mile could result in hazardous travel conditions.

By sunrise, most snow is expected to have already departed our area into central Minnesota.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 121 PM CST Tue Dec 30 2025

Aviation impacts are forecast at TAF sites through 18Z.

This mainly comes in the form of lowered ceilings in the IFR to MVFR range, as well as potential for freezing drizzle. For more information regarding freezing drizzle potential, read the Discussion above. Most guidance keeps IFR to MVFR ceilings over the region through 18Z Wednesday, with low confidence possibility of scattering of clouds after 18Z Wednesday. Winds will be out of the west-northwest before 03Z, turning more northerly after a cold front moves through. Light snow is forecast as well between 06Z-15Z, with main impact from this being visibility reductions between 1-3SM, with brief periods of reductions down to half a mile possible.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...Winter Weather Advisory until 3 PM CST this afternoon for NDZ008. MN...Winter Weather Advisory until 3 PM CST this afternoon for MNZ001>009-013>017-022>024-027>032-040.