textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Bitter cold this morning with a Cold Weather Advisory in place for the entire area. Wind chills as of 2am range from -30 to -35.

- Blustery winds this morning will diminish today, resulting in wind chills 15 to 20 degrees 'warmer' tomorrow morning despite similar air temperatures.

- A clipper brings another potential round of light snow late Tuesday into Wednesday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 254 AM CST Mon Jan 19 2026

Infrared satellite imagery this morning shows the cold ground temperatures continuing to spread across Minnesota and Wisconsin as the last of the cloud cover lingers over southern Minnesota, with the bright blue hues within the Clear Infrared channel indicating ground temperatures down to -25 to -30C. This corresponds to our air temps in the 10 to 20 below range, with corresponding wind chills from -30 to -35 as of around 2am. Winds will continue to diminish this morning with wind chills improving for tomorrow night despite similar air temperatures, as highs today likely struggle to get out of the single digits above zero. The primary source of the frigid temperatures lingers with 850mb temperatures hovering at around - 20C, recovering slightly the midweek (corresponding to a clipper moving through), followed by another crash to end the week which puts even colder air over the region.

Returning to a chronological forecast, besides the cold and diminishing winds today into tonight there is not much to talk about weather wise as we continue to see northwesterly flow aloft tilt more westerly in the mid to lower levels, with our next clipper system arriving late Tuesday into Wednesday riding the southern edge of an extremely broad upper level trough spanning much of eastern North America. Surface high pressure to the north will help compress a shortwave which looks to move across southern Minnesota, with a brief 6 hour window where southern MN exists within the left exit region of the upper level jet pattern. This coupling of forcings from the shortwave and upper level jet should be enough to produce snow showers with the highest likelihood in southern Minnesota with chances diminishing towards central and northern Minnesota. The limiting factor with this clipper will be QPF given the cold temperatures throughout the atmospheric column, thus even a tenth of an inch of QPF would be about the most we can expect. The colder temperatures would support higher snow ratios and an overall fluffier snow, which could still result in accumulations of few inches in southern Minnesota where the forcing is strongest, tapering off to the north. Winds will not be overly strong within the lower levels either, such that the shearing of snowflakes to produce lower ratios and snow amounts looks to be less likely than other cases of higher ratio snows this winter. All this to say, a fluffy inch or two of accumulation are possible late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, possibly making for a slick morning commute especially along the I-90 corridor on Wednesday.

On the heels of the clipper system, even colder air looks to pour into the upper midwest by the end of the week as an upper level occlusion slides north of Lake Superior, increasing northerly winds both aloft and in the lower levels with a strong surface high developing on the western side of the occlusion diving southwards amidst the northerly flow. This will likely result in the coldest air of the season diving into the northern plains by Friday and Saturday mornings, with 850mb temperatures below -30C possible. This surface high would thankfully keep winds from becoming too strong, which should limit just how cold the wind chills get, however even 5- 10mph sustained winds with a -30F air temperature would result in wind chills of -45 to -50F and will be something to monitor closely as we head towards next weekend. Ensembles are reinforcing the deterministic solutions with the 00z ECMWF/GFS/Canadian Ensembles showing lows of -25/-16/-33 respectively on Saturday morning in the Twin Cities which would likely be at least a few degrees colder outside of the cities. This will likely end up being our coldest air of the season so far, and may become our coldest of the season altogether as the longer range ensembles show some moderation back towards more normal temperatures with highs in the low 20s and lows in the teens by the end of the month.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 1126 PM CST Sun Jan 18 2026

Although the main snowfall event has now passed, BLSN and HZ conditions are expected to linger for at least another few hours. Thus have included TEMPO groupings for a combination of MVFR/IFR cigs/vsby through 10z for nearly all sites early this morning. Gusty NW winds will gradually decrease through the period. Cigs will improve to VFR after sunrise although low VFR and MVFR cigs return in the afternoon. Forecast soundings continue to hint that snowfall chances during this timeframe remain low enough to keep out of the TAFs for now. NW winds become westerly by the afternoon and reach at or below 10kts by the early evening.

KMSP...BLSN/HZ will continue for at least another few hours until around 10z as gusty NW winds will range between 25-30kts. Cigs will rise slightly into low VFR for at least the morning before another round of MVFR cigs returns this afternoon. Snow chances continue to look negligible during this timeframe. NW winds will gradually decrease and shift westerly by 00z to around 10kts. Cigs will make an effort to scatter out to low VFR late in the period.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ TUE...VFR. Wind SW to S 5kts. WED...MVFR/-SN early, then VFR. Wind NW 10-15kts. THU...VFR. Wind SW 5kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MN...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST today for Anoka-Benton- Blue Earth-Brown-Carver-Chippewa-Chisago-Dakota-Douglas- Faribault-Freeborn-Goodhue-Hennepin-Isanti-Kanabec- Kandiyohi-Lac Qui Parle-Le Sueur-Martin-McLeod-Meeker- Mille Lacs-Morrison-Nicollet-Pope-Ramsey-Redwood-Renville- Rice-Scott-Sherburne-Sibley-Stearns-Steele-Stevens-Swift- Todd-Waseca-Washington-Watonwan-Wright-Yellow Medicine. WI...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST today for Barron-Chippewa- Dunn-Eau Claire-Pepin-Pierce-Polk-Rusk-St. Croix.