Storms To Snow: Active Weather Week In North Dakota

Thunderstorms to Accumulating Snow

Get ready for another rollercoaster of a weather week in the Peace Garden State. Like last week, you can expect a nice warm-up in the early to middle part of the week, just ahead of a significant cold snap for the end of the week. Once again, we are likely to see showers or thunderstorms on Wednesday and Thursday before it transitions to snow early Friday morning. Here's a look at the thunderstorm potential from the Storm Prediction Center-National Weather Service on Wednesday/Thursday.

North Dakota is going to feel almost summer-like again with high temperatures in the 70s on Monday and Tuesday, and soaring into the low 80s on Wednesday, before an approaching cold front on Thursday will send temperatures crashing to the point of accumulating snow possible late Thursday evening into Friday morning.

Cooler Weekend Again

Whatever snow that does fall will likely not stick around for long, but it will take a while for temperatures to recover after this system. Much like this past weekend, it will likely be on the cooler side this coming weekend, with high temperatures in the 40s.

When will the Snow End?

It's certainly not unusual for snow in May in North Dakota. I believe the latest snowfall of at least one inch in Bismarck is somewhere around May 23rd, according to a graphic I saw on WDAY-TV news. So, we are far from out of the woods when it comes to potential winter weather. The extended forecast from Accuweather for Bismarck shows a cooler and active pattern into mid to late May. We could certainly see another round of wet flakes.

In the end, we will never turn away precipitation in North Dakota. Frozen or not, we could flip to a drought situation like a light switch. Speaking of which, we are expected to transition from La Niña to El Niño weather patterns sometime in May. I will tell you what that means for North Dakota in a future article.