textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Rain, snow, sleet, and freezing rain this morning with light ice and snow accumulations expected.

- Mild temperatures and weak disturbances with low predictability are in store over the next 7 days.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 308 AM CST Mon Dec 22 2025

As warm air continues to advect in this morning, isentropically forced showers have lead us to issue a Winter Weather Advisory. Despite low QPF, thermal profiles are warm enough that most of the snow is melting to rain before reaching the surface. This has lead to a wintry mix, with the greatest impact from the freezing rain component of this mix. With the time of day, early morning before sunrise, temperatures are near or just below freezing. This will lead to ice accumulation and therefore a Winter Weather Advisory was issued. As this area of showers tracks farther to the east into Wisconsin, later this morning it will move into cooler air. This will limit the amount of snow that will melt and transition precipitation types over to all snow. Road reports from the Minnesota Dept of Transportation show increasing ice coverage on roads this morning. This will spread north and east as the precipitation advances into the Twin Cities metro area in advance of and for the early part of the morning rush. Thankfully this is not a large area of showers and it will move out of Minnesota by mid morning and out of Wisconsin by late morning. The rest of the day will be mild with high temperatures in the 30s.

Ridging will be dominant over the central CONUS for the much of the week. This will allow warmer air to move in and keep us above normal through the week and highs above freezing. The warmest period appears to be on Christmas Day when 15 to 20 C 850 mb temperatures move over us. How warm your area gets at the surface will depend on how much snow has melted before then. Snow free areas will make a run at 50, while areas with snow will be in the upper 30s to near 40. A small shortwave disturbance could provide another chance for some mixed precipitation late Christmas Day into Friday. Not strongly forced, so not expecting much QPF at this time. A larger wave appears likely for the weekend, but there is a split in long range global guidance. The ECMWF deterministic and its ENS dig the trough deeper and into our area, while the GFS and its GEFS keep the better forcing to our north. So spread keeps us from having much confidence on this system yet.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 1151 AM CST Mon Dec 22 2025

VFR conditions will continue through the day with some potential for lower cigs and patchy fog tonight. Confidence is not particularly high, but it is higher toward EAU so included MVFR cigs returning this evening. Southeast winds will become west/northwest tonight behind a cold front.

KMSP...Can't rule out some ground fog overnight, but winds aren't expected to decouple fully so the probability is low. There is a low chance MVFR cigs will develop Tuesday morning, so included a FEW mention for now.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ WED...VFR. Wind SE 5-10kts. THU...VFR. Wind SE 5-10kts. FRI...VFR, chc MVFR/IFR. Wind light/variable.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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