Happy Tuesday evening everyone! It was a day covered in clouds and dropping temperatures. Now the focus turns to nighttime into early Thursday as heavy rain…and some snow…snowmaking heads our way. Let’s break it down.

OVERNIGHT: Temperatures will continue to drop overnight, reaching 40°C around midnight. Showers develop after midnight and change to steady, widespread rain overnight. Sometimes the rain can be heavy.

THURSDAY MORNING: By dawn Thursday, most areas of the metro east will be entirely rainy, with snowflakes starting to mix in westward along a line from Hinckley to St. Cloud, in southwest to Worthington. By 10 a.m., most areas along I-35, east of a line from St. Cloud to Redwood Falls, are expected to be under a band of steady snowfall. The main impact is limited visibility. Even then, snow can sometimes fall hard enough to create muddy roads, slippery spots, and even accumulations. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an inch or two of slush in some places that starts to melt as soon as the snow clears up a bit.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON & EVENING: Snowfall gradually diminishes in the afternoon and is expected to disappear by evening. The sky will gradually clear and any snow on the ground should melt at that time. The weather is expected to be dry, but cold and windy, as temperatures will remain in the 30s through the evening.

And the rest of the week? Friday is expected to be cool and seasonable with partly cloudy skies and highs in the 40s. Saturday is mostly dry with partly cloudy skies and highs in the mid to upper 50s. Saturday evening sees clouds increase, as do rain chances, as a series of disturbances are expected to bring widespread chances of showers from Sunday into the morning of Election Day on Tuesday. This could again lead to heavy rainfall, spread over a series of days.

Enjoy the evening and find a way to take advantage of tomorrow’s SPOOKTACULAR forecast!
– Meteorologist Chris Reece