textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Today through Monday, dry and seasonably warm with highs in the 40s/50s.

- Late Tuesday into Thursday, a large system will bring widespread precipitation across the region. This system will have a band of heavy wet snow, but current trends have this snow falling in northern MN.

- There is potential for another round of precipitation at the end of the week. It will be cold enough by then to make the predominate p-type snow.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 223 AM CST Sun Feb 15 2026

Once again, temperatures tonight are struggling to just drop down to our normal highs. Early in the night, weak potential vorticity advection resulted in a batch of mid-level clouds that moved across southern MN and WI. However, as these clouds have cleared, we've seen fog expand out of the Red River Valley toward central MN. We'll watch visibility trends this morning, though the CONSshort and NBM visibilities would say we may very well need a Fog Advisory along and north of the I-94 corridor down to St. Cloud this morning. For the rest of today, we'll pretty much get a repeat of Saturday with very little airmass change from what gave us highs in the 40s and 50s yesterday. Unlike yesterday though, record highs will be more difficult to achieve, mainly because those step up from the around 50 we had for records yesterday, to closer to 60 today. Tonight, a weak cold front will pass across the region. It looks dry, though we could see a brief WAA forced shower around the Ladysmith area after midnight. The main impact this front will have for us is to knock a couple of degrees off the highs for the first day of the work week, though highs Monday will still be running 20+ degrees above normal.

Tuesday through Thursday, models continue to show a strong system impacting the northern CONUS. However, current model trends continue to favor a northern solution, with surface to h5 how coming out of NoDak and going across central MN. This track puts areas closer to the Canadian border in line to see a large amount of QPF as PWATs of 300% of normal feed into the strong deformation band expected to develop north of the low Tuesday night. With this northern trend, it means we see the mid-level dry slot, which will likely cut down on the amount of rain we see with this system. In addition, we stay warm with this low track, with highs in the 50s still showing up in southern MN into Wednesday. The most impressive part of the forecast though are lows Wednesday morning, where the NBM currently has lows from the Twin Cities down to south central and southeast MN in the lower 40s, or roughly 15 degrees warmer than the average HIGH. It just goes to show how anomalous this system is for mid-February (it really belongs in the second half of March...).

For Thursday through next weekend, a trough will remain anchored over the Rockies, with a strong jet coming out of western US/Mexico border into the Ohio Valley. This will leave us susceptible to seeing additional upper disturbances. From the EPS, it's Thursday night into Friday and again Saturday night that are the two periods to watch for the potential for more precipitation. Ensembles are rather disperse on when/where additional waves kick out of the western trough at the end of the week into next weekend, but at the very least, temperatures will be colder by then so that if we do see precipitation, it will most likely be falling as snow.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/

Issued at 534 AM CST Sun Feb 15 2026

Forecast will start out with clear skies but areas of fog have developed over the past hour or two. I've tweaked the prevailing & TEMPO groups at AXN/STC to better represent the BR potential over the next few hours. I kept VSBY aoa 1SM at these sites. Fog will burn off after daybreak with light SW winds turning more S this evening and eventually NW by the end of the TAF. CIGs remain VFR throughout the period with mid-high level clouds returning this afternoon.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ MON...VFR. Wind WNW 5-10kts. TUE...VFR. Chc MVFR/-RA late. Wind E 10-20 kts. WED...VFR. Chc MVFR/-RASN. Wind E bcmg NW 10-20 kts.

CLIMATE

Issued at 228 PM CST Wed Feb 11 2026

Record high temperatures for February 15th through 18th can be found in the table below. Period of records began: MSP (1872), STC (1894), EAU (1893).

SUN MON TUE Wed 2/15 2/16 2/17 2/18

MSP 63 (1921) 60 (1981) 63 (2017) 58 (2017) STC 55 (1921) 53 (1981) 59 (2017) 57 (2017) EAU 58 (1921) 58 (1931) 55 (1981) 59 (1981)

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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