textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Impacts to holiday travel as early as Tuesday with a 40% chance for minor (advisory type) winter impacts

- A colder, more winter-like pattern persists through the end of the month as we remain more active into December.

..Synopsis

Zonal flow across the northern plains and SW in the southern US along with a stalled upper low off the coast of southern California with bring multiple chances for precip to the region of varying intensity in the coming days. The first system will arrive tonight in the form a weak clipper type with minimal moisture and low impact potential for northern tier counties. The next feature of interest will be a second northern stream wave coming form the southern Canadian Rockies and likely interacting with the ejecting upper low around the Tuesday/Wednesday timeframe. This second system will be the main focus of the forecast with its potential to impact Thanksgiving holiday travel plans.

- Tonight

A subtle shortwave currently noted in water vapor imagery in the BC rockies will quickly move east tonight amid 75kt 500mb flow with PWAT around 0.60" and weak temperature advection across the international border area beginning after midnight. The primary inhibiting factor will be low level dry air on the southern periphery of the low via surface high pressure currently near Sioux Falls, SD. Overall there is low confidence in much more than a few sprinkles but given the thermodynamic profiles and lack of saturation into the DGZ at times there is the possibility for drizzle and even freezing drizzle should surface temperatures be cold enough to support it. If this threat were to materialize it would likely be handled with an SPS rather than a winter weather advisory.

- Holiday Travel Impacts

A complex interaction between a northern stream wave with some influence from an ejecting upper low currently located off the southern California coast will lead to holiday travel impacts with a combination of initial rain at the onset of the event Tuesday changing to snow later in the day and lasting into wednesday as winds pick up on the backside of the then departing system. Overall the thought of the waves interacting is well agreed upon but thats about where synoptic confidence ends as timing and location of this interaction is still poorly agreed upon by global ensembles and subsequent cluster or so called scenarios they depict. A general floor of impacts seems to be a couple tenths of an inch of snow from Valley City to Park Rapids and south and maybe 1-2" of snow in the north of there with areas that continue to have falling snow on Wednesday seeing the best chance for blowing snow impacts. Conversely a higher end type evolution might bring a more slow moving deepening low to the region which would yield higher snow amounts more in the advisory to low end warning territory and a strong post-low pressure gradient with winds upwards of 30-40mph and poor visibility from blowing snow on Wednesday. There really is not confidence in favoring one end of the spectrum over the other and as such readers should continue to closely monitor the forecast for how it may impact any holiday travel plans.

- Is winter here to stay?

Maybe? At least through the first part of December that is. This weekend into early next week (until it begins to rain and snow on Tuesday) will most definitely be the last we see of any 40s and 50s for at least the next 2 weeks. Highs will frequently only reach the 20s and even 10s at times from mid next week through the first week of December with lows frequently reaching the single digits. A more active pattern of western troughing and riding in the Gulf of Alaska will mean NW across the Canadian Rockies which keeps us (the northern plains) squarely in the crosshairs for arctic intrusions and clipper type systems. There is some signal for a more colorado low type pattern to persist from near thanksgiving into the first few days of December which would yield more variable temperatures and higher chances for impactful snow/rain but teleconnections (-AO, +GBI, and -PNA) all seem to contradict the potential for that to play out with drier but colder weather favored.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1129 AM CST Fri Nov 21 2025

VFR conditions prevailing through the period with winds 5-10 mph this afternoon mainly out of the south turning more westerly overnight and then NW by Saturday afternoon. A weak low moves across the Lake of the Woods area tonight bringing lowered BKN to OVC ceilings around 5-6k ft tonight.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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