textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Rain showers, & even a few rumbles of thunder, spread across the area Tuesday evening.

- Rain transitions over to snow across portions of central Minnesota overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. Snow accumulations of 1-3" are expected.

- Turning colder late week with another chance for accumulating snow Thursday night/Friday - mainly across the southern 1/3 of Minnesota & western Wisconsin..

DISCUSSION

Issued at 238 PM CST Mon Feb 16 2026

We've seen another beautiful Spring day (in mid-February) this afternoon with highs again warming into the 50s across the region. Patchy dense fog is possible again overnight, but drier air means it should mainly be limited to river valleys & other low-lying areas. Anomalously warm conditions continue tomorrow, albeit a few degrees cooler than the last few days. Winds will be much gustier however, as easterly winds gust to around 30 mph during the afternoon in response to a sub-990 mb low approaching out of the Dakotas. The main weather story in the near-term continues strong system expected late Tuesday into Thursday. Model trends continue to favor a more northern track, which keeps the heaviest precipitation (including a band of heavy, wet snow) mainly in northern & north-central Minnesota, while our stay warm enough for rain. The first wave of precipitation from this system likely moves into the area from south Tuesday evening, along an occluded front extending east from the surface low over the eastern Dakotas/western Minnesota. PW values are well-above normal ahead of this system, & model guidance continues to indicate a few hundred J/kg of MUCAPE are likely, so a few rumbles of thunder certainly seem possible with the rain showers that develop along the front Tuesday evening. Some of the strongest CAM solutions even depict some updraft helicity tracks where a storm or two is able to tap into the strong environmental wind shear over the area, & potentially deepen enough to create some small hail across southwest Minnesota.

Behind this front, a dry slot is likely to work into at least southern portions of Minnesota & Wisconsin, if not our entire area, resulting in mostly dry conditions Wednesday. More widespread precipitation is still expected to be ongoing closer to the track of the surface low across northern & north-central Minnesota, where temperatures will cool enough for predominately snow to fall. Models have remained consistent enough over the last 24-36 hours to feel confident that the greatest chances for the snow Wednesday sets up just north of our CWA across north-central Minnesota & northern Wisconsin. Still, some snow likely looks possible across our far-southern CWA which could get clipped by the southern edge of this band, mainly north of an Alexandria to Pine City line where accumulations of 1-3" looks possible. Can't totally rule out some lighter snow south of this region, potentially as far south as the twin Cities metro & I-94 corridor, but we'd likely only be looking at a dusting to a few tenths Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Colder air works into the area later in the week (Thu-Sat) with highs falling back into the 30s then 20s, along with additional chances for light snow. Guidance is coming into agreement with a system coming out of the central plains on the track of the aforementioned mid-week system, & generating a swath of precipitation over at least the southern third of Minnesota & central/southern Minnesota Thursday night into Friday. However, models still struggle with the phasing of this system, likely a result of struggling to resolve the strength & evolution of the midweek system. The stronger, more phased, solutions actually generate & pronounced deformation zone northwest of the surface low track, that could result in several inches of snow somewhere across the southern 1/3 of Minnesota into western Wisconsin. meanwhile, the weaker, less-phased solutions just bring a quick hit of lighter snow mainly to southeastern Minnesota & the southern half of Wisconsin. We likely won't see guidance converge on a solution until we get through the bulk of the midweek system (sometime Wednesday), so continue to monitor the forecasts for later in the week. Much cooler, but still seasonal, temperatures persist through the weekend with highs generally in the 20s & lows in the single digits.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 526 PM CST Mon Feb 16 2026

The long stretch of VFR with light winds continues into tonight. This stretch comes to an end in the morning as winds increase with gusts from the east in the 20 to 30 knot range. These winds will be ahead of the next weather system moving into the area. Most of the impacts from this system will be after 00Z, so are not included in this set of TAFs. There could even be some thunderstorms with this system. Forecast soundings show enough elevated instability to generate these storms. A deeper dive into these chances will be required for the 06Z TAFs tonight. What will arrive this period though will be a drop into MVFR ceilings.

KMSP...Same as above for the general discussion, but for MSP especially the terminal is right on the edge of the possible dry slot. So the terminal could remain dry with all the action staying to the north for this period. It is close enough that I did introduce some rain to the TAF, but it looks like the biggest impacts stay to the north at this point.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ WED...VFR. Chc MVFR/-RASN. Wind W 10-20 kts. THU...VFR. Chc IFR/-SN late. Wind N 10-15 kts. FRI...VFR. Chc IFR/-SN early. Wind NW 10-15 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MN...None. WI...None.