You better watch out. And it has nothing to do with Santa.
The National Weather Service officially issued a watch early this morning for a blizzard after several days of cautioning the region about the possibility of a major storm. The watch begins Saturday night and runs through late Sunday night.
A watch means there's potential for falling and blowing snow with strong winds and extremely poor visibilities that can lead to whiteout conditions and make travel very dangerous.
The watch impacts all of North Dakota and much of western and northwestern Minnesota. Areas to the east are in a winter storm watch.
The weather service office in Grand Forks says snow is expected to overspread eastern North Dakota by Saturday night then move quickly into the rest of western Minnesota. Gusts of 40 mph are expected through Sunday night, blowing around six inches or more of new snow and creating significant drifts.
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As if that were not enough, 'dangerous wind chill temperatures' will fall between 30 and 40 below by Sunday night, following a drop below zero in actual air temperatures during the day Sunday. Monday will "only slowly improve" conditions, the weather service says, with dangerous wind chills around 40 below zero expected to persist.
Conditions in western North Dakota are expected to develop early Saturday before speading across the state during the day.
