Major storm to impact much of the east will be another glancing blow for Minnesota

It has been a pretty meager year for snow across much of the country, at least until late. The second major storm to roll through the country in as many weeks is now into the central U.S. which will spread snow across nearly 2 dozen states through Monday night. While this won't be an epic storm, some spots from Iowa to Massachusetts could get a foot of snow snarling traffic both on the ground and in the air. But Minnesota will once again miss out on another big storm as we sit on the northern fringes of this monster. But, the track of this snow maker is far from certain, especially in Minnesota.

This storm is a little different than a lot of the others because it isn't just one area of low pressure… it's actually 2. In reality, its 2 different storms that will fuse together early Sunday.


The southern storm is the much stronger of the 2 carrying a lot more moisture and will head through Iowa and eventually into the Ohio Valley. The northern storm is a simple clipper, but the location of this storm and how it fuses together with the stronger one will determine how much snow we get. This creates FAR more uncertainty in the track of the snow and how much we get. If this wave gets to Iowa faster, than it can pick up more moisture and dynamics from the bigger storm and be able to spread snow further north and at a higher intensity… this would give the metro more snow… best case scenario, 3 or even 4 inches. But if it trails the southern stream storm a bit and moves in later, say late Sunday morning, then much of the moisture and dynamics are too far east to benefit Minnesota and the metro may only end up with a dusting, with lighter amounts falling along the I-90 corridor as well. It is IMPOSSIBLE to tell exactly how quickly these 2 storms will mesh, but it leads to more uncertainty than normal. But we can look at what has happened in the past to see what is more likely to happen now. In previous events like this one, the northern wave has trailed the southern wave in many cases, giving the metro far less snow than we thought possible. Because of this, totals are expected to be around an inch or less for many metro locations, with up to 2 possible in the far southern suburbs, but even that may be optimistic…