textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Light snow tonight into Saturday across far southeast North Dakota and parts of west central Minnesota. 30 percent chance of more than 3 inches in areas near South Dakota border.

- Quiet after this system into early next week with below average temperatures.

..Synopsis

Sfc high pressure ridge axis from southwest Manitoba thru Harvey to Aberdeen SD. Sufficient cloud cover has prevented temps from dropping as much as they could and prevented fog formation. Upstream stratocu continues work south with clouds covering nearly all the fcst area. Tis the season, and at this time doubtful will see much in the way of sunshine periods today. Plus we have mid and high level clouds overspread the area from the west in advance of broad upper trough advancing east/southeast thru the Pacific Northwest. 500 mb low/vort max looks to be near Portland Oregon at 08z. This upper wave moves into central Nebraska Saturday morning. But out ahead of this main wave there are weaker short waves noted in water vapor moving into western SD and up into western or central Montana early this morning.

The forecast for today hasnt changed, in that there will be a narrow but intense zone of 800-700 mb frontogenetical forcing from central Montana into central SD developing thru early afternoon and moving southeast later today into this evening into Iowa. Rather narrow but locally intense snow with this, with this staying well to our south. We do have flurries in this cloud area with pockets of light returns and sfc obs showing flurries up to Winnipeg. So did have flurry mention thru mid morning.

With the main 500 mb wave into central Nebraska by 18z there is a 500 mb trough extending north from this into North Dakota. This short wave trough will be the forcing for an area of light snow acting on the north edge of 700 mb warm advection that skirts east along the SE ND and NE SD border region tonight into Saturday morning. Main moisture if farther south and forcing for lift not that strong, but enough to generate an area of broad light snow that will be over southeast ND into west central MN overnight tonight into Saturday. Forecast soundings from GFS/NAM show decent moisture up thru 750 mb 12z-18z Saturday period but lift, omega is very weak. So dont anticipate over aggressive SLR ratios nor favorable for dendritic zone enhanced snowfall. Plus wind not a factor as winds will be 10 kts or so. Looking thru all the probs from NBM, GFS,ECMWF, Canadian global ensembles in DESI looks like about an average of around 30 pct chance of more than 3 inches in Sargent county and SW Richland county....down to less than 10 pct Fargo. On the cusp of potential advisory for Sargent county due to snowfall, but will not have advisory at this time due to no nudgers to make 3 inches an advisory level impact. Snow doesnt start til tonight, so dayshift will evaluate further and if amounts creep up a bit more then that may be enough to tilt in favor of advisory. No snow anticipated farther thru GFK or BJI northward.

After this system a rather quiet period with no signals for impactful weather. If we can clear out, it will get cold with below zero lows likely esp in new snow areas...double digit below even as coldest airmass any high nearby Sunday night. But center of high pressure ridge will hold more west of our fcst NW into south central ND like the current one, so in those cases clouds always a concern.

AVIATION /04Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1000 PM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

MVFR under the stratus with some flurries occasionally dropping vis as low as 2SM. Ceilings dont seem to want to fall below 1500 anymore but more typically will be 2-3k through 12z. VFR tomorrow with light and variable winds as high pressure becomes centered over the region tonight into tomorrow.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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