Springtime in Minnesota + Wisconsin: Near 70 Wednesday, Followed by Plowable Snow This Weekend?

Please don't hate me - after the winter we all just endured I'm fragile and looking for a new gig, one that doesn't involve heavy snow in April. The good news: in spite of the pet glacier in your yard, we should see 60s the next few days with an outside shot at 70F Wednesday afternoon. Blessedly sloppy and lukewarm.

The bad news: Old Man Winter is rabid and not going away as fast as I would like. There's a better than even chance we will see more accumulating snow this weekend, especially Saturday night into Sunday. It may be enough to shovel and plow and I am so sorry for having to share this news. At 131.7" this is already the third snowiest winter on record for the Twin Ports. Another 3.8" and we move to #1, shattering the old record of 135.4" set in 1995-96. Good times.

The snowfall forecast (above) will shift and change over time as the track, temperature and moisture profile of the weekend storm changes with new data initializing the weather models. And I'd like to go on record hoping (out loud) the European model is wrong about this. It's been fairly consistent printing out plowable snow amounts for the last few days - so I suspect we'll see something from the weekend transition from rain to snow. One plus: with a sun angle similar to early September any (new) snow won't stay on the ground for long. Is any of this helping?

Spring in the Northland is always two steps forward - one step back. Or is it one step forward, two steps back? I honestly can't remember. But European guidance (above) shows a wild temperature roller coaster ride with highs in the 40s to near 50F next week.

We see huge swings in weather at this latitude on a regular basis, so I guess we shouldn't be shocked. My biggest take-away: take full advantage of the warmth this week. Soak up some early 60s - a tantalizing taste of what's to come.