A Few Rain Showers Sunday – Chance Of Snow Tuesday Night

Third Wettest (Full) Year On Record… So Far

Through Friday, the Twin Cities has picked up 40.03″ of precipitation (rain and melted snow), which ranks as the third wettest year on record if we didn’t see any more precipitation. The second wettest year on record was 1911 with 40.15″, and the wettest was 2016 with 40.32″ of precipitation. With some rain and snow possible as we head into Thanksgiving week, I assume we’ll continue to inch our way closer to the record. Of course, we have all of December to go as well.

Meanwhile, if we saw no more precipitation through the rest of 2019, it would be the second wettest year on record in St. Cloud (record: 1897 with 41.01″), the wettest year on record in Rochester (the previous record was 43.94″ in 1990), and the eighth wettest in International Falls (record: 1941 with 34.35″).

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Year-To-Date Precipitation Rankings

If we take those precipitation amounts and look at them just year-to-date, the Twin Cities, Rochester, and St. Cloud are all sitting at the wettest January 1st – November 22nd on record. International Falls and Grand Forks are sitting at the second wettest on record, with Duluth a bit behind at the 40th wettest. One thing is for certain – 2019 will go down in the record books as a wet year across much of the state as well as the and the upper Midwest.

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Snow Potential Late Tuesday Into Early Wednesday

We are tracking a storm that could have impacts here in the Upper Midwest as we go into the late Tuesday and early Wednesday time frame. This could have the potential to cause some heavier snowfall amounts, but with the storm system a few days out there is still uncertainty to the overall track of the system (this system in the models has kept moving in the past several days from a similar track to the one shown above, to one further south and east that would avoid the state). That means we’ll have to watch this system carefully as we head toward the busy Wednesday travel day ahead of Thanksgiving.
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Looking Ahead Toward Thanksgiving

As we head into Thanksgiving week, all eyes turn toward the travel forecast. We’ll start with Wednesday, which currently looks to be a mostly sunny day in the Twin Cities with highs in the mid-30s. The day could start with a few snow showers across southern Minnesota into Wisconsin, and a few snow showers are possible across northern Minnesota during the day.

For Thanksgiving Thursday, the morning hours will remain dry for the most part. There will be an increasing chance of at least light snow showers into the afternoon and evening hours across southern Minnesota that could impact you if you’re heading out to any of those stores that are opening for Black Friday shopping Thursday evening. Highs will range from the 20s in northern Minnesota to the upper 30s in southwestern portions of the state.

We are going to have to pay closer attention to the forecast as we head into Friday (particularly late in the day) and into Thanksgiving weekend, as models are showing the potential of a storm system impacting the Upper Midwest with rain, snow, and ice. It’s a little too far into the future for too many details, but if this system does develop like models currently indicate it will impact travel as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

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Corn Harvest Still Behind

Image: Iowa Environmental Mesonet

The corn harvest continues to be impacted by the weather across the region. As of the latest update from the USDA released last Monday (the 18th), 77% of corn that is harvested for grain had been harvested, 13 days behind the 5-year average (which is 94%) and 12% behind the ten-year average calculated by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. The USDA reported that, “The crops coming out of fields are often reported as wetter than usual for this time of year, with many producers looking to dry their crop. However, those looking to dry their crop continue to face concerns of LP gas shortages.“

It’s even worse in the Dakotas, where only 23% of the corn is harvested in North Dakota (five-year average: 85%) and only 53% is harvested in South Dakota (five-year average: 91%). The next update is issued on Monday.

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Extended Twin Cities Forecast

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This Day in Weather History
November 24th

1993: The Thanksgiving Day Blizzard of 1993. A slow-moving storm system traveled across the Upper Midwest during the Thanksgiving holiday, causing heavy snow across most of Minnesota. Travel became extremely difficult if not impossible over west-central Minnesota where over a foot of snow accumulated. A number of car accidents were reported and several community events were canceled. Snowfall in excess of six inches or greater occurred north of a line from Bricelyn (Faribault County) to the Twin Cities metro area.

1983: A snowstorm dumps almost two feet at Babbitt and about 20 inches at Duluth.

1825: A warm spell begins over Ft. Snelling. The temperature rises up to 70 degrees.

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Average Temperatures Precipitation for Minneapolis
November 24th

Average High: 36F (Record: 60F set in 2017)
Average Low: 22F (Record: -10F set in 1893)
Average Precipitation: 0.06″ (Record: 1.06″ set in 2001)
Average Snowfall: 0.4″ (Record: 1.7″ set in 1977)
Record Snow Depth: 10″ in 1996

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Sunrise/Sunset Times for Minneapolis
November 24th

Sunrise: 7:22 AM
Sunset: 4:36 PM

*Length Of Day: 9 hours, 14 minutes and 34 seconds
*Daylight LOST Since Yesterday: ~1 minute and 57 seconds
*When Do We Drop Below 9 Hours Of Daylight? December 3rd (8 hours, 59 minutes, and 27 seconds)

*Next Sunrise At/After 7:30 AM: December 1st (7:30 AM)
*Earliest Sunset: December 5th-14th (4:31 PM)

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Minnesota Weather Outlook

As an area of low pressure moves north of the Canadian border Sunday, a few rain and snow showers will be possible across the northern two-thirds of the state, with even a few rain showers possible here in the Twin Cities. Highs will range from the 30s in northern Minnesota to near 50F in southwestern portions of the state.

Highs across much of the state Sunday will be 5-10F degrees above average, with some areas of southwestern Minnesota up to 15F above the normal. The average high for November 24th in the Twin Cities is 36F.

Highs will be in the 40s once again Monday in the Twin Cities, but a cold front that pushes through the state that day will help usher in highs that are closer to average as we head toward the middle of the week.

Temperatures will remain around average as we head into the holiday weekend here in the Twin Cities before the GFS indicates that we could fall off a cliff as we head into the middle of the first week of December. It is currently indicating that highs may not make it out of the single digits at least one of the days during the middle of that week. If you wanted a different forecast, the ECMWF Ensemble has highs in the 20s right now during that same stretch, so we’ll see how cold it does get.

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National Weather Forecast

On Sunday, an area of low-pressure moving near the Northeast coast will bring rain, snow, and ice to portions of the Northeast and down the Appalachian Mountains. An area of low pressure in Canada with trailing fronts into the U.S. will bring rain and snow across portions of the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Some rain and higher elevation snow will also be possible in the Pacific Northwest.

Through Monday evening, heavy snow of at least a couple feet will be possible in some of the western mountain ranges, with the potential of at least a half a foot of snow in portions of New England as well. Meanwhile, over an inch of rain will be possible in the eastern United States.

Here’s a closer look at those potential rain and snow tallies across the Northeast as we go through the weekend. Areas like New York City and Boston could see over an inch of rain, with snowfall totals approaching 6″ in Caribou, ME. Some icing will also be possible. This will have the potential to impact anyone doing some pre-Thanksgiving travel on Sunday in/into the region.

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MTA floods NYC subway entrance because ‘climate change is real’

More from The Verge: “A flooded subway entrance stopped Brooklyn commuters in their tracks yesterday. For four hours on Wednesday, the staircase leading down to Broadway Station in Williamsburg was blocked off and completely submerged. The sight was even stranger since it hadn’t rained in New York City that day.  It turns out that the flooding was intentional; the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority was testing one of the gadgets it has put in place to protect the subway system from a future super storm. In the case of a real disaster, a “flex gate” seals off the entrance to the station and can hold back up to 14 feet of water. The MTA says that it was checking to make sure that a new gate at the Broadway Station was installed correctly; it passed the test.“

Some Pacific Island Nations Are Turning To China. Climate Change Is A Factor

More from NPR: “This month, the Trump administration formally began the yearlong process of pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement. It will be the first and only country to quit the 200-nation deal to combat climate change. That’s a big concern for some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, including the small island nations of the Pacific. While the administration still promises to work outside the agreement with nations on environmental problems, Pacific island nations that consider themselves on the front lines of climate change had hoped the U.S. would stay committed to the global deal to cut emissions and help populations confront the rising seas around them. Now some leaders of those nations are turning for help to China, and climate change has been a factor. Beijing has vowed to stay in the Paris climate agreement. The diplomatic reconfiguration in the region has opened up a new front in the battle for influence between China and the U.S. and its allies.“

A climate-change fix is the ‘biggest investment opportunity in history’: Al Gore to millennials

More from MarketWatch: “Combating climate change may be “a life or death struggle” for aging millennials in particular, but such peril is not without an upside, according to former U.S. vice president and Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist Al Gore. The millennials targeted at a recent conference for Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, now well into their careers and building robust stock portfolios, should see the climate-change fix as “the single biggest investment opportunity in history,” Gore told the event in San Francisco.“ The sustainability revolution has the magnitude of the agricultural and industrial revolutions but the speed of the digital revolution,” Gore said. “This is the battle of your lifetimes, but we can turn the corner in the next 10 to 15 years and the assets you control can make a huge difference.”“

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Thanks for checking in and have a great Sunday! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) and like me on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser)!

 – D.J. Kayser