By Euan Kerr

MPR News/90.1 FM

The National Weather Service’s Twin Cities office is advising holiday travelers to keep an eye on a snowstorm expected to hit the Upper Midwest later this week. Lead forecaster Bill Borghoff says it will move in on Wednesday evening with a rain-snow line, which will run through the northern Twin Cities.

“Northwest is where we are expecting the heaviest snow,” he said, “between the Twin Cities and basically, say, Fergus Falls and southeast of that snowfalls drop off quite a bit with mainly rain expected.”

Borghoff says there is the potential for the storm track to move a little north or south before it arrives in Minnesota. However, he expects significant snow totals in areas of the state.

“So right now we are forecasting about 6 to 9 inches from west-central Minnesota up through northeast Minnesota,” he said. “But it’s going to snow a little bit beyond that so we could certainly be talking about some locations seeing over a foot, basically west of Redwood Falls up toward maybe Mora, kind of northwest of that line.”

Following the snow, cold will settle in over the area.

“Highs on Saturday statewide will be in the single digits and teens and that will slowly moderate a little bit after that,” he said “But it looks like we will finally see some subzero temperatures Friday night and Saturday night.”