Weather Picture for December 15-21 from Tornado Bob

Friday December 19 Update: Heavy lake effect snow on the North Shore, more snows this weekend over all of northern Minnesota

A lake-effect snow band is extending from Lake Superior between Silver Bay and Duluth to the Floodwood area at 8 AM this morning. This snow band dropped 5-8" between Duluth and Silver Bay and even provided a dusting to Grand Rapids overnight. Expect more heavy snow at the head of Lake Superior today.

A storm system will move into the area on Saturday and stall over us. The amount of liquid equivalent precipitation (melted down snow) will be less this weekend than last, but the snow will be fluffier, so we can expect to see amounts of 5-10" by the end of the weekend. The heaviest snowfall will occur on Saturday afternoon.

Temperatures will remain below average through the middle of next week. Some moderation in temperature looks possible by the end of next week.

Overall, the general weather pattern looks to remain snowy after this weekend.

Original post (December 15):

The December 14 snowstorm dumped 8-12" across the KAXE listening area-- pretty much as expected. The great news about this snowfall is that the there is now plenty of snow for grooming and skiing. We've had about 18" in the past 10 days.

For the next week, we'll have some very cold weather with highs in the single digits above and below zero and lows in the teens and 20s below zero. We will have chances of light snow on Tuesday, on Thursday, and Friday night. A series of low pressure systems will pass well to our south (Kansas-Illinois), but each of these lows will feature a trough extending northward into Minnesota, and there will be a good north-south contrast in temperature that should allow these systems to wring out some snow from this bitterly cold airmass. The best chances of snow and the largest accumulations will probably be south of our area, but I would not be surprised to see a few more inches between now (Dec. 15) and December 22.