CONFIDENCE INCREASING IN HEAVY SNOW POTENTIAL ACROSS SOUTHERNMINNESOTA LATE SUNDAY NIGHT INTO MONDAY... .A Winter Storm Watch remains in effect late Sunday night through early Monday afternoon south of a line from Canby, to Olivia, Gaylord, Le Center, and Owatonna. A band of precipitation will lift northeast into southern Minnesota late Sunday night, quickly becoming all snow. This will be a heavy, wet snow, with rates of over an inch per hour possible. The snow will taper off during the late morning into early afternoon. Total accumulation of 5 to 8 inches are possible, with the highest amounts expected near I-90.

It won't be quite as nice on Sunday with skies becoming cloudier and temps running a little cooler than they did on Saturday.

Temps on Sunday will warm through the 40s much of the day with highs approaching the upper 40s by the afternoon. Winds will also be a bit an issue gusts approaching 25mph out of the east.

High temps across the region on Sunday will be nearly 5F to 10F above average with high temps warming into the 40s across much of the state.

Don't forget to set your clocks ahead 1 hour before heading to bed on Sunday. We SPRING forward 1 hour early Sunday morning, which means our sunset will be 1 hour later starting Sunday! Don't be late.

Weather conditions on Monday will be much cooler as a storm system moves into the region. Highs will only warm into the 30s across much of the state.

Here's the extended temperature and weather outlook over the next 5 to 7 days. High temps on Sunday will warm to near 50F, which will be nearly 10F above average for mid March. However, on Monday, it'll be cooler than average with highs only warming into the mid 30s.

"How do you know when spring has begun? Is it the appearance of the first tiny leaves on the trees, or the first crocus plants peeping through the snow? The First Leaf and First Bloom Indices are synthetic measures of these early season events in plants, based on recent temperature conditions. These models allow us to track the progression of spring onset across the country. March 8, 2021 Spring leaf out continues to spread north across the country. After arriving early in southern parts of Southwest and Southeast states, cold temperatures halted the progress of spring leaf out for several days across the northern part of the Southeast and Great Plains. Spring leaf out is now gaining momentum again as it moves into Midwest states. Spring bloom has arrived in parts of Southwest and Southeast states. Spring bloom is early in California and Arizona and late in parts of Southeast states."

See more from NPN HERE

Here's a look at the snowpack as of Saturday, March 13th. Note that there was no snow measured at the MSP Airport, but there was a pretty decent amount to the North of the metro due to our recent system early this week. There was still 5" of snow on the ground in Duluth and 10" on the ground in Marquette, MI.

Here's the ECMWF & GFS extended temperature outlook for Minneapolis through the end of March. Temps will be fairly mild with reading jump to above average levels many times over the next couple of weeks.

According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, the 8 to 14 day temperature outlook shows the above average temperature readings moving in across much of the nation and the Upper Midwest by the end of the month.

Permit me to ask an esoteric question: is there such a thing as too much snow? Ask skiers in Colorado, licking their lips at a forecast of 2-4 feet of powder in the mountains. In reality, it's too much snow too fast - creating a risk of avalanches.

That same storm will spread a pinwheel of white into southern Minnesota tomorrow, dropping 5-10 inch amounts from Austin and Mankato west to Worthington. The metro may pick up an inch or two of slush, but right now it appears MSP will be on the northern edge of the snow shield. Consider this a subtle (yet blunt) reminder that March brings an average of 10 inches of snow. The thing about March snows? With a higher sun angle they often melt within a few days. Small consolation.

Another storm tracks to our south by midweek, and models bring another surge of 60s into Minnesota one week from today. More spring than winter on the maps.

SUNDAY: Partly sunny, cool breeze. Winds: E 10-20. High: 48.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Winds: E 10-15. Low: 30.

TUESDAY: Flurries taper, clouds linger. Winds: SE 5-10. Wake-up: 29. High: 40.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly cloudy, mix may stay south. Winds: N 5-10. Wake-up: 28. High: 46.

THURSDAY: Getting sunnier, stiff breeze. Winds: NE 10-20. Wake-up: 30. High: 50.

FRIDAY: Mix of clouds and sunshine. Winds: S 5-10. Wake-up: 28. High: 48.

SATURDAY: Sunny and pleasant. Winds: S 10-15. Wake-up: 29. High: 54.

1943: Snow, sleet and ice cripple parts of Minnesota south of a line from Duluth through St. Cloud and Ortonville. The heaviest ice was in the vicinities of Lake Benton, Springfield and Windom. Ice thickness was 1/2 to 3/4 inch around St. Cloud to 3/4 to 2 inches in the Pipestone, Ruthton, Lake Wilson, Slayton and Tracy. A good description of the ice was submitted in one report: '…ice was 2 inches across and 1 3/4 inch deep on wire. A little frost ice near the wire with the outside solid ice. The ice was irregular in shape.' Duluth had 6 inches of snowfall at the city office with 13 inches at the airport. The ice was confined to Moose Lake and south.

1870: A severe snow and wind storm moves across Minnesota and Iowa. The 'Northern Vindicator' of Estherville, Iowa becomes the first newspaper to use the term 'blizzard' on this date.

March 14th

Average High: 40F (Record: 73F set in 2012)

Average Low: 24F (Record: -10F set in 1897)

Record Snowfall: 7.2" set in 1989

March 14th

Sunrise: 7:27am

Sunset: 7:18pm

Hours of Daylight: ~11 hours & 51 minutes

Daylight GAINED since Winter Solstice (December 21st): ~ 3 hours & 5 minutes

1.9 Days After Last Quarter

"These next several days – March 14, 15 and 16, 2021 – look westward after sunset to glimpse the young and slender moon adorning the evening twilight. You could possibly miss the moon at dusk March 14, because the pale whisker-thin crescent may not be bright enough to overcome the glow of evening twilight. More than likely, the young moon on March 14 will follow the sun beneath your horizon before nightfall (end of astronomical twilight). Find an unobstructed horizon in the direction of sunset, and start your young moon search some 45 minutes after the sun goes down. Binoculars could come in handy!"

See more from Earth Sky HERE:

Here's the weather outlook on Sunday, which shows temps warming to above average levels across much of the nation in the Eastern US.

"Even as Texas and much of the central U.S. froze, many other regions of the world were warmer than average last month. February 2021 was the 16th warmest February since global record keeping began in 1880, 0.65 degrees Celsius (1.17°F) above the 20th century average, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, NCEI, reported March 12. NASA rated the month as the 14th warmest February on record. The Japan Meteorological Agency has not yet released its February numbers. Minor differences in rankings often occur among various research groups, the result of different ways they handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic. February 2021 was Earth's coolest month (relative to average) since April 2015, according to the European Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the coolest February since 2014. This relative coolness was partially the result of a strong negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) during the first half of the month. In a negative AO phase, the jet stream weakens and meanders, creating larger troughs and ridges, allowing very cold Arctic air to spill southward over the mid-latitudes. The AO on February 10-11 was -5.3, which essentially ties February 5, 1978, and February 13, 1969, for the lowest February value on record."

See more from YALE Climate Connections HERE:

"IN 2016, Earth's South Pole was struck by a ghostly particle from some unknown corner of the universe. This antineutrino — the neutrino's antimatter twin — collided with an electron at nearly the speed of light, and the ensuing particle shower lit up a network of detectors buried beneath the ice at an observatory in Antarctica appropriately named IceCube. Within that particle shower, astronomers found signs of something never seen before in any observatory. The collision spun off a W-minus boson, an elementary particle that carries the so-called "weak force," one of four fundamental forces in physics. This phenomenon is called a Glashow resonance. And while scientists had first predicted its existence more than 60 years ago, this is the first time they'd actually seen it. "This was really something very new," University of Wisconsin physicist Francis Halzen, IceCube's principal investigator, tells Inverse. "We have seen neutrinos of the same energy before, but we have never seen one that produces a W-minus boson. It's something very different from what we normally look at, and so we studied this event to death." The new study, authored by some 300 physicists from the IceCube collaboration, was published Wednesday in the journal Nature."

See more from Inverse HERE:

"The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year will approach within some 1.25 million miles (two million kilometers) of our planet on March 21, NASA said Thursday. The US space agency said it will allow astronomers to get a rare close look at an asteroid. The asteroid, 2001 FO32, is estimated to be about 3,000 feet (900 meters) in diameter and was discovered 20 years ago, NASA said. "We know the orbital path of 2001 FO32 around the Sun very accurately," said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies. "There is no chance the asteroid will get any closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles." That is roughly 5.25 times the distance of the Earth from the Moon but still close enough for 2001 FO32 to be classified as a "potentially hazardous asteroid". NASA said 2001 FO32 will pass by at about 77,000 miles (124,000 km) per hour faster than the speed at which most asteroids encounter Earth. "Currently, little is known about this object, so the very close encounter provides an outstanding opportunity to learn a great deal about this asteroid," said Lance Benner, principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA said astronomers hope to get a better understanding of the asteroid's size and a rough idea of its composition by studying light reflecting off its surface. "When sunlight hits an asteroid's surface, minerals in the rock absorb some wavelengths while reflecting others," NASA said. "By studying the spectrum of light reflecting off the surface, astronomers can measure the chemical 'fingerprints' of the minerals on the surface of the asteroid."