Precipitation mixing with cool air is bringing the slim possibility that the first snowflakes of the season will fall this week somewhere in the Arrowhead region of northeastern Minnesota.
“We have got to be careful when mentioning the ‘S’ word too early,” said Josh Sandstrom, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth. “But we can’t rule it out.”
What is certain is a hard-charging cold front will send temperatures from highs in the 70s Tuesday to lows in the 30s by Wednesday night. Precipitation coming with it will mostly be rain, but could be white at times as a low pressure system spins over Ontario.
“Instant fall,” Sandstrom said, noting the warm summer-like conditions over the long Labor Day weekend. “Perhaps the first conversational snowflakes of the season.”
September snow is nothing unusual for counties along the Canadian border and Lake Superior, but it is rare to have some this early in the month, Sandstrom said.
Though a trace of snow did fall in Duluth on Aug. 31, 1949, which might be the earliest on record, Sandstrom said. The earliest measurable snow on record was 0.3 inches on Sept. 14, 1964, in International Falls, according to the National Weather Service’s Duluth office, which covers all of northeastern Minnesota.
The ingredients — off-and-on showers mixing with cold air — will be in place through Friday, particularly in the interior areas of Lake and Cook counties where snow is most likely, should it fall.
“It would not be a shocker,” Sandstrom said. “I’d give it about a 25 percent chance that there could be some wet snowflakes up there early Thursday or Friday mornings, and a less than 10 percent chance for a very localized dusting of snow if all the ingredients came together just right.”
