A couple more winter storms will impact the region over the next few days – with the first one kicking off this afternoon.
Jacob Spender is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks. He says the system moving in today will be confined to southern areas of North Dakota, with impacts lessening further north.
"Locally, heavy snow near that border area, with greater than 6 inches possible in that region. So we're going to see near-blizzard conditions, within the heaviest snowfall, right around that Wahpeton, Foreman, and into the Elbow Lake area. So it doesn't need to be strong winds with this; we're going to see a lot of heavy snowfall rates. But when it's combined with the stronger winds, we can get those blizzard conditions at times. The winter storm warning in those areas is in effect until 4am on Saturday."
Another stronger, more significant system will develop next week. Meteorologist Tommy Grafenauer says the National Weather Service doesn’t typically warn of storms four or five days in advance – but this one could shape up to be a big one.
"I think it's really, really important to reiterate that this will be the most impactful winter storm of the season. If that favored scenario does happen, this would be a longer duration type blizzard, 18 or 24 hours, would bring heavy snowfall. Significant drifting that would close roads. All those impacts together that would lead to a very long recovery time."
More details on that storm will be determined on Monday, but Grafenauer says with the weekend ahead now is a good time to prepare ahead of time.