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Minnesota Vikings fans planning a trip this weekend to New Orleans to see them play the Saints in the conference championship better watch the weather forecasts.
The chances that a major winter storm will hit this area by late Friday are increasing, said Nancy Godon, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks.
By Friday, the heart of the storm is expected to bring snow across central and northeast South Dakota and west central Minnesota. Warm moist air moving ahead of the low may cause freezing rain, but the precipitation is expected to be all snow Saturday through Sunday.
Peter Rogers of the weather service said snow amounts are still hard to predict because the track of the low is still uncertain, but the heaviest snow will fall Saturday and the heaviest amounts will be in southeast North Dakota. No watches or warnings had been issued as of Tuesday afternoon.
"This storm will be a big one," Rogers said. "It will impact a large chunk of the U.S. from Grand Forks to the Southern Plains and cause widespread thunderstorms in the southeast."
Rogers said temperatures will cool as the storm passes, but not to the subzero-degree chill felt in late December and early January. Temperatures are forecast to remain in the upper 20's during the storm. The extended forecast highs for Grand Forks are 26 degrees Monday and 19 degrees Tuesday with low temperatures at or near 10 degrees.
Rogers said temperatures may dip to freezing in the south.
The big news Monday into today was the dense fog blanketing the Red River Valley, Godon said. A dense fog advisory was over the entire region, meaning visibilities were ranging as low as zero, but mostly down to a quarter-mile at times.
Law enforcement agencies reported no serious traffic problems Monday night despite the heavy fog conditions that at times included icy roadways.
Lots of moisture
The fog is a harbinger of how much moisture is being carried by the warmer-than-normal winter air.
Later this week, a winter storm will move out of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado into the Central and Northern Plains by Friday, fueled by moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.
"Right now, the computer models show that tracking through the Central Plains," Godon said. "So how that sets up, with how much moisture and how far it will go northward will be critical. We won't be able to pinpoint that until later this week."
But chances are that at least some snow and high winds are mounting, and that will make travel a problem, whether it's to the Twin Cities or New Orleans.
"Anyone thinking about traveling from Friday through Monday really should keep track of the forecasts," Godon said. "Because it's not only us. This is another big storm system that will affect a large part of the nation's midsection."
The best side of the weather this week will be that temperatures are forecast to remain above average, and well above zero.
The old high-low
A record, in fact, was set Sunday at the Grand Forks airport: the highest minimum temperature for the date.
You know, the old high-low. That's what January often gives to denizens of this clime.
The mercury never fell below 22 degrees Sunday at UND, the weather service reported, breaking the previous record highest daily low temperature of 20 degrees for Jan. 17 set in 1999. UND's weather records go back 130 years.
But all this week, the high temperatures are forecast to be in the mid-20s for the northern valley region and 25 to 30 degrees for the southern end of the valley.
Lows each day are forecast to dip down to only 10 to 15 degrees, all above zero.
That, of course, means better conditions for precipitation, too, Godon pointed out, because warmer air can hold more moisture.
January so far has been a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde period, temperature-wise.
The first nine days averaged mostly 15 to 27 degrees below the 30-year norms, with a low of 29 below on Jan. 2 at the UND reporting station, the weather service says. At the Grand Forks airport, the temperature fell to 35 below on Jan. 2.
The second nine days of the month, the average daily temperatures have ranged mostly 14 to 29 degrees above normal, with a high of 41 on Saturday, at UND.
The upshot: So far this year the average daily temperature has been 4.9 degrees, only 0.6 degrees above normal at UND. Sounds like a mild time, but it only illustrates how statistics can lie.
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