textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- 1-3" of accumulating snow this afternoon and evening. Slick travel conditions are possible during the evening commute.

- Much warmer air arrives later this week. Observed surface highs will be dependent on the status of the snowpack heading into the weekend.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 202 PM CDT Tue Mar 17 2026

Tuesday afternoon regional radar display captures a clipper system advancing southeast out of the Dakotas over Minnesota. Snow is reported across western Minnesota, with visibilities falling to 1-2 miles at Canby and Montevideo. Farther east, low-level dry air evidence on KMPX radar imagery is delaying top-down saturation for now, however forecast soundings show this process occurring by late afternoon and early evening from west to east. Similar to many clippers, this is a high PoP/low QPF scenario, with high SLR's (15- 20:1) given the cold air mass in place. In other words, it doesn't take a lot of moisture to produce accumulating snow in these regimes. Little change in the storm total snow forecast today, with 1-2" expected across western MN and the best chance for 1-3" across eastern MN into western WI. In addition, there may be a brief period of freezing drizzle behind the snow across western MN as the warm nose expands northeast. While the amounts may not be as eye popping as this past weekend's winter storm, we are concerned about the early evening timing of increasing snow rates. As we know, it doesn't take much of any form of wintry precipitation to create slick travel and today's scenario is no exception. Our plan is to increase messaging on our website and social media channels this afternoon and anticipate that we will need an SPS as saturation occurs and snowfall rates increase in the coming hours. I won't rule out the need for a short term Winter Weather Advisory, though for now the plan is to watch the observations to the west and road conditions.

Snow ends from west to east this evening, which will signal the end of winter weather concerns for the remainder of the period. Large scale ridging will expand east over the northern CONUS, warming temperatures as a result. Do suspect that the combination of warmer air advecting over the cold snowpack will yield fog/low stratus concerns in some capacity over the next few days. The big weather story nationally will be the expansion of a July-like ~594dm ridge over the Four Corners region by late week into the weekend. This will result in continued height rises into the Upper Midwest and the expansion of 850mb temperature anomalies between 10-20C. The biggest question locally will be the state of the snowpack by the time the weekend rolls around. It's possible that the development of more stratus over the next few days may limit sunshine and slow the melting process. On the other hand, surface temperatures warming above freezing into the 40s midweek and into the 50s on Friday should take a considerable chunk out of the snow depth. All of this to say, Saturday looks like the warmest day in the period with the latest NBM showing highs in the upper 60s to near 70 along and southwest of the MN River. Highs in the low to mid 60s extend across much of central and eastern MN and temperatures look to make a run into the upper 50s across western WI. There is still a rather larger spread in the NBM 25-75th percentile ranges, so it will be somewhat of a sit and wait before locking into forecast highs. I would tend to lean towards warmer solutions given the anomalous nature of the incoming air mass and the March sun-angle.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1258 PM CDT Tue Mar 17 2026

Light snow will spread east in the afternoon with IFR vis likely. There is still a chance for a brief period of some freezing drizzle toward the end of the precip across southern and western MN. Light and variable winds will become southerly and gusty in the afternoon. Cigs will slowly rise back to VFR levels, but there are some uncertainty for the end of the period. Warming temperatures could support low stratus or BR development on Wednesday. I left it out for now but may need to add something back in once we see the better warm air advection kick in Wednesday AM.

KMSP...Light snow should arrive around 22Z and persist through late evening. Rates of 1/4 to 1/2 inch per hour are expected in the early evening.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ THU...VFR. Wind NW to SW 5kts. FRI...VFR. Wind SW to NW 5-10kts. SAT...VFR. Wind SW 10-15kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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