Wednesday night snow and a brief cold snap

A potent but somewhat warm Alberta Clipper is going to bring rain and snow to southern Minnesota and northern Iowa tonight (Wednesday) into very early Thursday morning. Snowfall totals, for some of us at least, will be around 1 to 3 inches and are enough for Dodge and Olmsted counties to be under a Winter Weather Advisory until 6am Thursday morning. Those won’t be the only counties to pick up an inch or two of snow, however.

Snow will be briefly heavy at times Wednesday night and very early Thursday morning and should be all wrapped up by 3am Thursday morning. Heads-up late night and early morning travelers: while many roads have been treated and will be taken care of tonight, some less-traveled roads will be a bit difficult at times early Thursday morning. Visibility will be affected by snowfall from about 10pm Wednesday until 3am Thursday morning.

Another clipper will slide through Friday but looks to affect only central to north Iowa with minimal amounts of snow.

Behind tonight’s clipper, the coldest air of February so far will move into the region from Thursday through Saturday. Sunday through next week will become gradually milder with above average temperatures returning to the upper 30s to around 40 degrees.