textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- System for tonight will largely miss the MPX area to the southeast.

- Colder temperatures through Monday of next week.

- Quieter weather pattern expected for the next week, with no major systems anticipated.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 325 AM CST Thu Feb 19 2026

Surface low that brought us back to winter Wednesday is up near the MI/WI/Lake Superior region this morning. To the south of this low, there's still an h7 thermal gradient from roughly Morris to the Twin Cities, which is associated with a remnant band of snow. It's not puking snow like our deformation band did Wednesday afternoon, but it's still putting out light snow accumulations. Followed the NamNest for PoPs through this morning as it's the model that's been handling this band of snow the best. This means it's likely to snow through the entire morning from Morris and Alexandria over toward St. Cloud. With the light snow falling, roads will remain snow covered through the morning commute, with another slow commute expected to start your Thursday, which is why we extended the Winter Weather Advisory clear out to 8am. The commute this morning won't be as ugly as what we saw Wednesday evening, but it will still be slow.

To the west, there is a strong shortwave coming out of Colorado. This will head for the Great Lakes by Friday morning. We've seen a sizable shift in the models overnight with this wave coming out of Colorado not phasing at all with the weakening wave currently up over western Lake Superior. With these two systems not phasing, it will suppress tonight's system to the south and east. From the perspective of the MPX area, the system for tonight through Friday morning looks to go just a bit outside. Therefore, the forecast update overnight significantly reduced PoPs/QPF/snow, with it now looking questionable if we see snow even as far northwest as Albert Lea and Eau Claire.

For the weekend, we'll remain under the upper trough, with cyclonic low level flow. However, very dry high pressure nosing in from the Canadian Prairies will keep us dry. After last weekend's spectacular treat of sunny skies and highs in the 50s, this weekend will be rather blah, with cloudy skies, breezy northwest winds, and highs only in the teens and 20s.

For next week, we'll see a rather amplified upper flow develop across North America, with a blocking high over the Aleutians, troughing in the eastern Pac, ridging across the Rockies into the western Plains, and troughing over the east coast. That ridge to our west will push some warmer air our direction after Monday, though there's a lot of spread with just how warm we'll be. It will come down to where the northern stream storm track ends up. We could find ourselves getting warm sectored by systems going across southern Canada, or we could end up more in the storm track, which would mean cooler temperatures and some more chances for snow. Most of the ensemble and deterministic models keep that storm track to the north and us rather mild, but the AIFS shows potential for the more southern storm track, so we'll have see if the last week of February finishes more like Spring or Winter.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1058 PM CST Wed Feb 18 2026

Slowly diminishing swath of snow over central-eastern MN into southern MN and western WI continues to produce IFR conditions across the area. Snow is gradually shifting eastward while shrinking in size, thus precipitation will steadily end during the early morning hours. However, low stratus will persist across the entire area through tomorrow, with IFR ceilings likely for some if not most of the daylight hours Thursday. Winds will diminish overnight through sunrise, with gusts dropping off and sustained speeds generally around 10kts. Directions will shift more towards NW and N tomorrow through tomorrow night.

KMSP...Light to moderate snow can be expected over the first few hours of this TAF duration. Visibilities will improve to VFR range prior to daybreak. Snowfall will diminish to snow showers then eventually end overnight with no snow expected for Thursday. Winds will continue to veer to the W and NW through tomorrow, allowing for 30s operations, and have diminishing speeds. That said, ceilings will remain below 1700ft throughout this duration.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ FRI...VFR/MVFR with Chc -SN early. Wind NW 10-20 kts. SAT...VFR. Chc MVFR cigs. Wind NW 10-20 kts. SUN...VFR with MVFR possible. Wind NW 15-20 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MN...Winter Weather Advisory until 8 AM CST this morning for Carver- Dakota-Douglas-Hennepin-Kandiyohi-McLeod-Meeker-Pope- Ramsey-Scott-Stearns-Stevens-Swift-Washington-Wright. WI...Winter Weather Advisory until 8 AM CST this morning for Dunn- Pierce-St. Croix.