With the presence of a deepening low you typically get warm southerly winds out ahead and cold behind. Well a strong arctic cold front associated with a deepening low crossing the North-Central states is pushing through Montana and into the Dakotas as of this writing. The first blizzard warnings of the season are in place for parts of the Dakotas and rightly so as gale-force winds combined with heavy snow will make for near impossible travel later today on the open terrain of the N Plains. Meanwhile as temps crash into the teens across Montana and Dakotas today, out ahead of the front Minneapolis may push 60 degrees.

However, that arctic front sweeps through tonight and by daybreak tomorrow, MSP is in it’s coldest air of the season with a start off temp likely in the upper teens and highs barely making it into the 20s! Now that’s a cold front!

The below GFS charts show the winding up of the low and likely blizzard over parts of the Dakotas and later Minnesota.

The GFS has 20s in the Dakotas, even NW Minnesota while it’s in the 60s in SE Minnesota.

By dawn tomorrow morning we have single digits in northern North Dakota and 19-20F in Minneapolis.

The high likely won’t get out of the low 20s tomorrow and in fact the warmest part of the day may be early tomorrow morning as the temps dive.

With the assistance of snow cover, the rest of the week is cold, especially Fri-Sat as the core of the first wave of cold sinks south. Saturday AM shall start in single digits in Minneapolis, below zero across the Dakotas and N Minnesota.

The 2nd wave of even stronger cold arrives next week.