textproduct: Twin Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Quick hit of light snow possible late tonight into Sunday morning for locations roughly along and south of I-94. Other than that, dry weather is expected until Wednesday night.

- Colder temperatures remain in place through Sunday, then temperatures return to well above normal values through the middle of the upcoming work week before cooling down again to end next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 129 PM CDT Sat Apr 18 2026 Despite the sun, it's a raw mid-April day, with northwest winds gusting up around 30 mph and temperatures struggling just to top 40 degrees as we find ourselves between high pressure coming out of CO/WY and a deep low up by Hudson Bay. Of interest this afternoon though is the strong shortwave up over northern Saskatchewan. Most of the CAMs shows this wave diving into NoDak this evening, then sliding southeast across southern MN overnight. There will be just enough forcing with this wave to kick of some light precipitation. Given the cool temperatures, this precipitation will predominately fall as snow. Snow potential looks best southwest of roughly a Long Prairie to Stillwater line. We did introduce a patch of 30/40 PoPs following roughly ConShort PoP grids for what will hopefully be our last flakes of the 25-26 snow season. Though read on to see why that may not be...

For the first half of next week, we'll see upper riding slowly move across the central CONUS, this will start pushing warmer air back up into the upper Midwest. The warmest day looks to be Wednesday, when the NBM has highs in the lower 70s (western WI) to mid 80s (western MN), though these highs are currently a little under the NBM 50th percentile, so we could be warmer, with highs in the 90s within the realm of possibilities down wind of the Buffalo Ridge in west central MN. We could be just as warm Thursday, but this is when the cold front arrives and with it will be cloud cover, rain chances, and slightly cooler temperatures. For that rain through, a surface low on Thursday will be going across the northwest corner of MN. The NBM shows dewpoints in the lower 60s moving into the area, so this doesn't just look to bring a chance of rain, but our next opportunity to possibly see strong to severe storms.

Behind the front, we will be replacing our central CONUS ridging to start the week with deep troughing over central NOAM. This will result in cooler temperatures for next weekend into the final week of April that will likely linger into early May as well. With the upper trough overhead, we'll have the potential for shortwaves to sneak through (like tonight) and given the cool temepratures aloft in the through, you can't completely rule out still seeing a few more snowflakes fall after tonight. Beside the snow, there will also be potential for more freezes. Next weekend marks when we start getting into the the median date range for when locations along and southeast of a line from New Ulm to the Twin Cities and Eau Claire see their final freeze of the spring. However, with the warmth we've had this spring, we're well underway in the green-up process and given more warmth we're expecting this week, we'll likely need to turn our frost/freeze program back on in southern MN, so we'll have to watch just how cold we get next weekend into the following week across southern MN.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1259 AM CDT Sun Apr 19 2026

Swath of mid-level clouds will sweep across the Upper Midwest overnight into later this morning in association with a strong shortwave trough pushing across the region. Scattered brief- duration -SHSN may be realized at most of the terminals prior to sunrise, so have maintained the PROB30 mention due to the progressive nature of the showers and uncertainty if anything will be reported. Anywhere snow showers do reach the surface, no accumulation is expected. Gradual clearing is then expected from late morning through the rest of this TAF duration as high pressure moves in behind the wave. Breezy NW winds are expected during the daylight hours, then will quickly diminish with the loss of daylight later today.

KMSP...Brief MVFR conditions are possible with any -SHSN that may reach MSP, which still looks to potentially occur prior to 12z this morning. After that point, no additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/ TUE...VFR. Wind N 5-10 kts. WED...VFR. Wind SE 10-15G25 kts. THU...MVFR/-RA likely, mainly PM. Wind S 10-15G25 kts.

MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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