109
FXUS63 KMPX 212243
AFDMPX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN
443 PM CST Fri Nov 21 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- One last pleasant weather weekend this weekend before winter
  sets in next week.

- Cold and unsettled for the extended Thanksgiving holiday
  weekend.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 234 PM CST Fri Nov 21 2025

Our period of quite and mild weather is continuing today and will
continue through this weekend. We have a surface ridge moving
overhead today, which has given us light winds. We`ll get on the
back side of the high tonight, with a westerly or southerly wind
direction expected through Monday. This weekend will be beautiful
and will likely be the last weekend we have until March where you
can get out and partake in outdoor activities without having to get
all bundled up. Simply put, if you still have outdoor holiday
decorations to put up, this weekend is you last chance to get them
up without having to worry about fighting off frost bite as well.

Our first chance for precipitation comes Monday. The culprit will be
the closed low currently near Los Angeles. This low will lumber
across the southern Rockies this weekend and head toward the mid-
Mississippi valley early next week. Ahead of this, we`ll see
moisture surge north across the Plains, with Pwats on Monday progged
to be up around 200% of normal across southern MN and western WI. So
moisture won`t be in question. As for the forcing, the best
vorticity advection looks to remain to our south, but broad WAA
should be enough given the high moisture content of the atmosphere
to create scattered rain showers on Monday (temps will be in the
40s, so wintry p-types will be of no concern). Amounts look highest
from south central MN into western WI, but even here, we`re looking
at 0.25 of QPF on the high end given the weak and broad forcing.

Tuesday through Thanksgiving weekend can be summed up in one way,
welcome to winter... On Monday, as the southern stream wave moves
off to our south, we`ll see a northern stream wave coming out of the
northern Rockies and into the northern Plains. This wave will be
deepening as it moves across the upper MS Valley and into the Great
Lakes on Tuesday. This will result in a deepening surface low over
the Great Lakes, which will setup strong CAA back across the upper
MS valley as our coldest airmass of the season thus far surges south
out of Canada. We should see a deformation band of precip develop on
the back side of the low, but where that deformation band sets up is
uncertain. Mean EPS and the ECMWF favor the heaviest precip on
Tuesday falling along the Canadian border, but when you dig deeper
into individual members, you do see some members that bring this
heavier precip farther south. Though at the moment, the most likely
scenario for the MPX area is that we see some snow showery type
acitivity within the wrap around moisture with the strong CAA on
Tuesday, but if you have travel plans, it`s something to keep an eye.

For the holiday weekend, it looks cold, probably... Thanksgiving
itself looks cold and dry as high pressure moves through. For Friday
and Saturday, there will be a very strong thermal gradient across
the Plains and it won`t take much of a shortwave to move through the
WNW flow to start deforming that thermal gradient, creating the
forcing for some snow. You can find various models that put out some
light snow on either Friday or Saturday with this type of setup. As
the holiday weekend ends, ensembles show a  trough digging across
the Rockies, which will likely set the stage for a more traditional
mid-latitude cyclone that could help end November and begin December
on a bang. This is where the maybe comes from on the holiday weekend
being cold, as one scenario you see within the ensemble envelope is
an aggressive warm sector surging north into MN and WI. However, for
the end of Thanksgiving weekend, this is still a period with a lot
of potential, but nothing certain. Given that the Sunday after
Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year, this period
bears close watching through the course of next week to see where
trends start pointing.

&&

.AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z SUNDAY/...
Issued at 441 PM CST Fri Nov 21 2025

Quiet TAF period with light and variable winds becoming
southerly overnight. Expecting the mid level BKN cloud deck to
continue to spread to the southeast but VFR conditions will
persist. By late tomorrow morning, winds will turn to the west
with speeds around 10kts before ultimately becoming
northwesterly.

KMSP...No additional concerns.

/OUTLOOK FOR KMSP/
SUN...VFR. Wind W to SE 5kts.
MON...VFR to MVFR, PM -SHRA. Wind SE 5kts.
TUE...MVFR, chc -RASN. Wind NW 10-20kts.

&&

.MPX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
MN...None.
WI...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...MPG
AVIATION...Dye