MN Weather: The first “real” snowstorm of the season is expected to hit the Twin Cities on Thursday

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MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A blizzard is likely to blanket much of Minnesota with snow on Thursday, with several centimeters of snow possible in many places, including the Twin Cities.

Snow on Thursday

What we know: A strong Alberta Clipper will move from Canada into the Upper Midwest late Wednesday and Thursday, likely bringing several inches of snow. While this won’t be anything epic or particularly notable on a grand scale, it looks like this will be the biggest snowstorm of the season so far for the Twin Cities.

Now, the bar is pretty low right now considering the metro has yet to record its first snow day of more than 1 inch of snowfall of the season. So the requirement for at least a centimeter of snow isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But many of us may not have used the shovel, snow blower or even snow blower much so far this season, so here’s your warning to get those ready for Thursday… However, in some areas there probably won’t be enough use of the snow blower .

What we don’t know: The expected path of this storm is still very uncertain and will impact how much snow the Twin Cities will receive. We also need to consider the overall snow ratio. This term describes how efficiently snow accumulates with the same amount of moisture and how structures of different sized snowflakes can contribute to the height of the snow that settles. Both the humidity and the snowflake structure have as much influence on how much snow we get as the overall path.

Moisture content and snowflake structure are the two variables that determine whether we shovel the heavy wet concrete snow, the super fluffy snow, or somewhere in between. It is very likely that it will be a looser snow.

Because of all of these variables, the exact expectations for snow totals have yet to be determined. We will post updates as Thursday morning approaches.

Dig deeper: The Twin Cities’ official climate site, MSP Airport, has never measured at least an inch during a snowstorm so far this season. This is WAY behind the value we normally receive.

Now I realize that many in the North and West metro and much of the state are crying foul because there are many areas that received up to an inch of snow on multiple occasions. However, this was not recorded at the airport and is therefore not included in our climate record. So we haven’t reached that threshold yet.

This is the last season in the Twin Cities Metro not to reach that mark since 2006, when it took place on December 21st. This is by far the last season in recent years, with even a few October appearances in the last seven years.

The subway has only made it to January four times since 1885 without a snowstorm greater than an inch – the record was set on January 21, 2005.

Will the Twin Cities have a white Christmas?

The long range: There’s a really good chance that this is the last chance of snow accumulating before Christmas. Anyone who wants a white Christmas wants as much snow as possible on Thursday. This is because a large-scale pattern change is likely coming next week, just in time for the holiday. This will set the stage for a major warming trend before, up to and after Christmas.

So we may get several centimeters of snow on Thursday, but with above freezing temperatures possible from Monday December 23rd, how much will be left on the ground at Christmas? Right now I’d give the metro a little more than a 50/50 chance that there will still be snow on the ground by Christmas morning, but it really depends on how quickly our fresh snow melts early next week.