DULUTH — Another major storm is on track to wallop the Northland on Thursday afternoon and Friday with up to a foot of new snow forecast for Duluth and the North Shore and nearly 2 feet possible for parts of the South Shore snowbelt in Wisconsin and Michigan.
The National Weather Service in Duluth has issued a winter storm warning effective from 10 a.m. Thursday to 1 p.m. Friday in the Twin Ports.
The winter storm warning includes Minnesota's Arrowhead and all of northern Wisconsin. Much of southern and eastern Minnesota and north central Wisconsin are under a winter weather advisory for lesser snow amounts.
Precipitation is expected to start as rain Wednesday evening then turn to all snow Thursday, with heavy snow and gusty winds expected much of the day and into Thursday night and into Friday in some areas. Forecasters said the snow will start as very wet and heavy and could add significant snow load to already weight-stressed structures.
Winds are expected to gust to 30 mph across the region by Saturday and up to 50 mph in Cook County, causing whiteout conditions at times.
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Because the wind will be from the north, it sets up the higher elevations along Lake Superior's South Shore to see lake-enhanced snowfall totals from 18-22 inches by Saturday.
Snowfall is expected to end from west to east by early Saturday.
Light snow was expected to fall across the Minnesota/Ontario border Wednesday night, part of a separate system.
Temperatures climbed well into he 40s across parts of the Northland on Wednesday but are expected to drop to highs only in the 20s Friday and Saturday — well below normal.
With the winter of 2022-23 already the ninth snowiest on record in Duluth at 116.4 inches, another 8 inches from the coming storm would jump this winter into sixth place with several more weeks of snow potential yet to come. The snow record for Duluth is 135.3 inches in the winter of 1995-96.
This story was edited at 3:40 p.m. March 15 to update the forecast from the National Weather Service. It was originally published at 8:37 a.m. on March 15.
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