Rain & Snow Showers Monday Afternoon

Forecast loop from 9 AM Monday to 6 AM Tuesday

It won't be a quiet start to the work week across the state, unfortunately, as we watch a system move on through. The good news is that the morning commute will be dry - not so much by the evening commute, though, as a mix of rain and snow showers starts moving through southern Minnesota during the afternoon hours with all snow up north. The system will move out into the overnight hours, ending as some light snow in central and southern Minnesota.

While some slight snow accumulation could occur here across central and southern Minnesota Monday Night, I'm expecting 1-2" up in the Arrowhead with locally higher amounts along the North Shore.

As that system moves through the state on Monday, we'll see warmer-than-average temperatures with highs generally in the 30s. A better chance of snow during the day will occur in northern Minnesota, with a mix to plain rain across southern areas of the state.

So with the afternoon rain and snow chances in the metro, we'll have our first chance at highs above freezing since January 27th. We should top off in the mid-30s after starting off around 20F. We'll see breezy weather as well with southeast winds at 10-20 mph gusting to 30 mph. Those winds will make it feel more like the teens and 20s.

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Now, this looks a lot better than some of the weather we've had recently! Highs this week will be in the 20s and 30s, and we could even see a chance at 40F on Wednesday here in the metro.

We will be keeping an eye on a system off to our south Wednesday Night into Thursday that could bring parts of southern Minnesota a glancing blow of snow, with better chances into Wisconsin.

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Rain & Snow Showers Later Today
By D.J. Kayser, filling in for Paul Douglas

Ah, warmer weather! Aren't we all glad we aren't completely freezing our behinds off anymore? As a first-year homeowner, there's one thing that I've noticed with the cold (besides the higher heating bills) - our video doorbells have issues on the most frigid of nights. That's due to the lithium-ion batteries used in these units, which can have trouble holding a charge around the freezing point and may stop working completely once it gets below zero.

No subzero highs or lows in our near future - highs will be in the 20s and 30s this week, potentially reaching 40F Wednesday with a nice early February thaw. A batch of rain/snow moves through later today, bringing an inch or two of snow to the Arrowhead. Another system passes close by Wednesday Night into Thursday, with impacts mainly limited to southeastern Minnesota.

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D.J.'s Extended Twin Cities Forecast

MONDAY: PM rain/snow mix. Breezy. Wake up 21. High 35. Chance of precipitation 50%. Wind SE 10-25 mph.

TUESDAY: Just a cloud or two early/late day. Wake up 27. High 35. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind NW 10-25 mph.

WEDNESDAY: An early February thaw. Mainly sunny. Wake up 21. High 39. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind SW 5-10 mph.

FRIDAY: Cooler with decreasing clouds. Wake up 18. High 28. Chance of precipitation 10%. Wind NW 10-15 mph.

SATURDAY: More sun than clouds. Wake up 12. High 30. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind W 5-10 mph.

SUNDAY: Cloudy "Super" Sunday. Wake up 31. High 35. Chance of precipitation 0%. Wind SW 10-15 mph.

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Minneapolis Weather Almanac And Sun Data
February 6th

*When do we see 10 Hours of Daylight?: February 27th (11 hours, 2 minutes, 59 seconds)
*When is Sunrise at/before 7:00 AM?: February 24th (6:59 AM)
*When is Sunset at/after 5:30 PM?: February 8th (5:30 PM)

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This Day in Weather History
February 6th

1994: The national low is at Tower, dropping down to -41.

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The heaviest snow through Tuesday will fall in the Cascades down to the Sierra, where a foot or two of snow could fall. The heaviest rain will be in the Pacific Northwest, with the potential of at least 1-2".

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A hidden challenge for Minneapolis climate goals: shoddy insulation

More from Energy News Network: "About two-thirds of homes being listed for sale in Minneapolis have inadequate insulation, according to a review of energy disclosure reports. Since January 2020, Minneapolis has required homeowners to disclose the results of a recent energy audit before selling a property. Since then, the city has collected publicly accessible data on more than 16,000 residential properties. Gas utility CenterPoint Energy and the Center for Energy and Environment, a nonprofit that manages the city's residential benchmarking program, recently studied the data and identified a lack of insulation as a recommendation to address in 65% of the reports. About 40% flagged inefficient heating appliances."

Football (soccer) and the climate crisis: does the game really want to tackle it?

Wildfires Are Increasingly Burning California's Snowy Landscapes and Colliding with Winter Droughts to Shrink California's Snowpack

More from Desert Research Institute: "The early pandemic years overlapped with some of California's worst wildfires on record, creating haunting, orange-tinted skies and wide swathes of burned landscape. Some of the impacts of these fires are well known, including drastic declines in air quality, and now a new study shows how these wildfires combined with midwinter drought conditions to accelerate snowmelt. In a study published Jan. 20 in Geophysical Research Letters, a DRI-led research team examined what happens to mountain snowpacks when sunny, midwinter dry spells occur in forests impacted by severe wildfire. The researchers found a substantial increase in wildfires burning in California's snowy landscapes throughout 2020 and 2021, when large blazes like the Dixie, Caldor, and Creek fires concentrated in snow zones. Using a 2013 midwinter dry spell as comparison, they found that similar weather in the winter of 2021-2022 led to 50% less snow cover. The compounding impacts of wildfire on snow melt include an increase in sun exposure due to loss of forest canopy, and a reduction in the snow's ability to reflect sunlight."

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