Willmar, region among Minn. areas under winter weather advisory
WILLMAR — Willmar, Benson, Montevideo, Olivia and Litchfield are among the area cities in a winter weather advisory beginning overnight tonight.
The National Weather Service Twin Cities office in Chanhassen has issued the advisory for snow sleet and freezing rain from 1 a.m. Friday to 1 a.m. Saturday. Ice and snow will cause travel difficulties, and motorists should be prepared for slippery roads.
A storm system will begin to organize across the Northern Plains later this evening and move southeast across the upper Midwest through Saturday morning. A mixture of sleet and snow, possibly mixed with freezing rain, will develop across west central Minnesota after midnight and spread southeast overnight, the Weather Service says.
Initially, warmer temperatures aloft will cause precipitation to fall in the form of freezing rain and sleet for areas south of Interstate 94, with mostly freezing rain for areas along the Minnesota River Valley southward to the Iowa border.
The mixture of precipitation will change over to all snow by Friday morning.
The Weather Service says total snowfall by late Friday night will range from 6 inches north of a line from Alexandria to St. Cloud to Eau Claire, Wis., and 1 to 4 four inches south of this line, with ice accumulations of one tenth of an inch along the Minnesota River Valley to the Iowa border.
