textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Freezing drizzle may impact travel conditions Saturday afternoon and evening. There is a 30% chance for advisory level impacts.

- Temperatures warming to above normal.

- Multiple chances for wintry weather over the next week but confidence remains low beyond this weekend.

UPDATE

Issued at 822 PM CST Fri Feb 6 2026

Latest guidance is indicating potential for freezing drizzle in portions of northeast ND and northwest MN, perhaps into west- central MN as well, Saturday afternoon into evening. This may impact travel conditions from light glaze of ice creating slick conditions.

Entrance region of an upper jet on the western flanks of a broad Hudson Bay upper trough will migrate across southern MB, eastern ND and MN Saturday into Sunday. This will induce a weak wave aloft via upper divergence, which in turn will promote relatively higher low level moisture to advect eastward across our area. This moisture advection is forecast to gradually ascend over relatively colder air mass (currently over our area) as it retreats eastward deeper into Minnesota.

Guidance is in good agreement that saturation aloft within snow growth layer will be absent, with sufficiently deep saturation (1-2 km thick) in the gradually moistening lower levels, mostly nestled within the supercooled region of 0C to -10C. This fits a conceptual model for freezing drizzle.

A point of uncertainty is how well saturated the near-surface layer will be, as most guidance indicates continual feeding of relatively drier air originating from the colder air mass undercutting the moistening layer aloft. This lowers confidence in coverage of freezing drizzle, as well as the 'rate' at which water droplets will reach the surface, with this drier air perhaps evaporating at least some portion of water droplets before reaching the ground.

As of now, areas near the international border in North Dakota, extending through much of northwest MN, and perhaps stretching into west-central MN, hold higher chances of seeing relatively greater depth of saturation as well as forcing aloft to sustain the drizzle-creating process (e.g. collision coalescence).

Timing the ingredients to generate freezing drizzle generally enters North Dakota Saturday afternoon, and into Minnesota late afternoon into evening. That being said, there is already freezing drizzle within north-central North Dakota where higher low level moisture is intermingling with relatively drier, colder air. This local area may spread into northeast North Dakota as early as early Saturday morning.

While the conceptual model is present, uncertainties described above keep the chance for advisory-level impacts at 30%. Impacts would be confined to travel conditions, with a light glaze of ice creating slick surfaces.

..Synopsis

Currently dominant Hudson Bay troughing to our east and troughing along the Atlantic coast will phase and work east/northeast into the north Atlantic giving way for the current highly amplified western ridging to deamplify and work east with flow aloft becoming more zonal as a result this weekend. At the same time ensembles strongly agree that a low currently evident in water vapor imagery off the California coast near Los Angeles will become a well defined cutoff low working southeast down the Baja Peninsula along the eastern periphery of subtropical Pacific ridging. This results in split flow across the central and eastern CONUS with signals for a few weak waves working across the weaker northern stream flow Saturday through Tuesday. However with modest 850-700mb flow across the rockies moisture is likely to be lacking and notable QPF from any given wave is thus a lower probability.

- Saturday Night

A quick but weak clipper will pass to our east more affecting northeast Minnesota but weak forcing in the low levels where near saturated profiles exist should initially promote some light snow and perhaps a wintry mix but that aspect is very low confidence and depends on minute changes in low level temperature profiles. Should things warm and more of mix does transpire travel could become slick from Roseau/Baudette down to the Bemidji area. Snowfall totals will be light with just a dusting to couple tenths possible for north central Minnesota.

- Sunday

A very shallow but seemingly well modeled shortwave then moves east along the Canadian border Sunday with warm profiles leading to p- type concerns. Really not a lot of confidence in this system but due to models all agreeing on the timing and placement of the wave for the most part it is worth an introduction to the forecast here.

- Tuesday

By Tuesday ensembles are starting to show differences in the potential placement of steering features and thus give us a notable north to south range of potential tracks along with still moderate timing disagreement for what could be a more robust wave. The main things we are confident in is the fact a wave is likely to bring QPF to the region Monday into Tuesday with up to 0.20" looking to be a reasonable max at this time with a resulting few inches of snow. With the track being west to east this would lead to a lower blowing snow risk than say a conventional clipper but likely greater than zero still. Will note that when looking at ensemble output dont mistake the low totals as high confidence with this being the result of track differences "washing out" the signal for higher totals as differing tracks with similar totals average out to a lower overall value. There also appears to be enough cold air on the backside of the Sunday wave that things will remain primarily snow with this wave.

Looking further ahead to the remainder of the week westerly flow in the low to mid levels should maintain a downsloping airmass off the Rockies and high plains leading to above average temperatures (average highs in the low 20s). Daily highs Sunday and beyond will typically be in the upper 20s to mid 30s though in days with true westerly winds eastern North Dakota may trend closer to the NBM 75th to 90th with our diminishing snowpack putting highs highs in southeast North Dakota more in the low to mid 40s range.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 822 PM CST Fri Feb 6 2026

Aviation impacts at TAF sites through 00Z Sunday are driven by lowered ceilings and potential for light icing from freezing drizzle.

High confidence in lowered ceilings in the MVFR to IFR categories at all sites by 00Z Sunday. There is a medium chance (50%) in LIFR conditions at sites like KDVL generally between 06Z-18Z.

There is also a medium (30%) chance for freezing drizzle leading to light icing at TAF sites like KDVL, KGFK, KTVF, and KBJI. Timing for this potential is after 08Z at KDVL, and after 18Z at the other aforementioned sites.

Winds will generally increase out of the south 10-20kt after 12Z.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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