Winter Set to Chill Central Minnesota to the Bone

(KNSI) – Be prepared to hunker down.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service believe it won’t just be Punxsutawney Phil who is afraid to venture out this winter. La Niña conditions are expected to bring frosty conditions across all of meteorological winter, which runs from December 1st to February 28th.

Brent Hewett with the Chanhassen office expects polar vortexes to dominate across the Upper Midwest. “It looks like at least the next two to maybe four weeks for the month of December look, on average, below normal in the temperature department. And when you look at January and February as well, both months have higher probabilities of below normal temperatures.”

La Niña years tend to have warm falls, as was certainly seen in Minnesota, followed by a jarring transition to cold, which we also got. The jet stream runs high into Canada, then pulls down that Arctic air from the northwest.

Hewett believes that, in addition to the freezing temperatures, we are more likely to see weather systems pass through the area. “There’s some pretty good signals for the next two to four weeks, where it looks like not only do we have cold air to play with here in the Upper Midwest, but it looks like we could see some pretty active storm tracks.”

If the forecast for meteorological winter holds, it would be a one-two combination from Old Man Winter not seen around St. Cloud in years. The 2022-23 winter had record snow but not a ton of cold. Then there was the winter that never was. Last year was chilly at times, but not very snowy. Hewett thinks we might get the full Minnesota experience this go around.

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