Minneapolis Snow Day Calculator

A free Minneapolis Snow Day Predictor. Enter your zip code, check the live weather, and see today's closure risk in seconds.

❄️ Minneapolis Winter Storm & School Closure Predictor
🌦 Weather data sourced from National Weather Service

How This Minneapolis Snow Day Estimate Is Calculated

When you enter a ZIP code, the tool loads the forecast from the National Weather Service (api.weather.gov) for the period from now until 8 a.m. on the next school morning — the window that matters, because districts usually decide between 5 and 6 a.m. It then adds up points:

  • Snowfall (up to ~100 points): compared with about 8 in, the rough amount that tends to close schools in Minneapolis. Reaching that amount gives about 65 points; half of it gives about 25.
  • Freezing rain / ice (18–45 points): even a thin glaze makes bus routes and sidewalks dangerous, so ice counts heavily.
  • Extreme cold (15–50 points): if the morning wind chill is near or below about -35°F, a level of cold that has led districts in the region to cancel buses or close in past cold snaps.
  • Blowing snow (10 points): strong wind plus meaningful snow causes drifting and poor visibility.
  • School type: private schools (−3) and colleges (−10) close less often than public school boards.

The total is capped at 95%, because no forecast is certain. The thresholds above are approximate, based on how local districts have handled past storms — they are not official policy. Only your school board's announcement is official.

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Minneapolis Snow Day Calculator

Trying to figure out if school gets called off tomorrow in Minneapolis? This free Minneapolis Snow Day Calculator gives you a fast answer for your own street. Type in your zip code and it checks live weather for that exact spot, not just one number for the whole metro.

The Minneapolis Snow Day Predictor looks at three things: how much snow is coming down, how strong the wind is, and how cold it actually feels. Those get combined into one closure risk score, shown as a percentage. The higher the number, the more likely school gets cancelled or a snow emergency gets called.

This tool won't replace the real call from Minneapolis Public Schools or the city itself. School decisions usually go out the night before or early in the morning, and a snow emergency declaration is a separate call the city makes, often by 6 p.m. What this tool gives you is a heads-up so you're not scrambling.

Keeping an eye on snow elsewhere in the country too? Our other city snow tools work the same way, checking live weather down to your zip or postal code.

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How the Minneapolis Snow Day Predictor Works

The tool runs the same steps every time:

  1. Enter your Minneapolis zip code and pick your school type.
    2. Enter Minneapolis zip code and select school type
  2. Click Get Current Weather. The tool finds your location and pulls live weather from the National Weather Service.
    3. Get Current Weather button and weather results
  3. Click Predict Minneapolis School Closure Risk. This is where it runs the numbers.
  4. Temperature, wind speed, and the current forecast (snow, heavy snow, or a blizzard) each get weighted based on how much they usually disrupt roads, buses, and city plowing here.
  5. Add it all up and you get your closure risk score, snowfall estimate, travel risk, and roof snow weight.

Use it alongside the National Weather Service forecast and the city's own snow emergency alerts, not instead of them.

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Minneapolis Snow Forecast: Why It Can Flip Fast

Minneapolis sits in the path of Alberta clippers, fast-moving systems that drop down from Canada and can dump a few inches of snow in just a couple of hours, and slower-moving low pressure systems that pull moisture up from the Gulf and bury the metro over a full day or two. That's why a Minneapolis snow forecast can shift by several inches between the morning update and the evening one.

Clippers are the tricky ones for planning around. They tend to move in fast, drop an inch or two of powdery snow with gusty wind behind them, and clear out just as quickly, sometimes leaving roads icy more from the wind-driven cold than the snow itself. The bigger, slower systems are usually easier to plan for since forecasters can see them coming days out, and they're the ones that tend to trigger snow emergencies and school closures across the whole city at once.

This is also why checking your own zip code matters. A clipper can drop more snow on the north side of the city than downtown, or the wind can pile drifts along open stretches near the Mississippi River gorge while side streets a mile away stay mostly clear.

Will Schools Close Today in Minneapolis?

Minneapolis Public Schools treats snow days and extreme cold days a little differently than a lot of districts. For the 2025-26 school year, the district's policy is straightforward: if school is closed for severe weather, it's closed. E-learning only gets used on top of that if a school is at risk of falling short of the state's required instructional hours for the year.

Recent storms show how this plays out in practice. During a March 2026 storm that dropped more than a foot of snow across the metro, MPS closed schools for pre-K through 5th grade entirely and switched middle and high school students to an e-learning day. During extreme cold snaps, like the -35°F wind chill warning in January 2026, MPS has closed alongside most other Twin Cities districts rather than trying to run buses through dangerous cold.

  • 1-3 inches: Usually just slower commutes, no closures.
  • 3-6 inches: Bus delays become more likely, especially on outer routes.
  • 6-12 inches: District-wide closures or e-learning days become common.
  • Extreme cold (wind chills near -30°F or colder): Closures often happen even with little or no snow on the ground.

Remember that a city snow emergency and a school closure are two separate decisions, made by two separate bodies. It's possible for Minneapolis to declare a snow emergency for parking purposes while MPS keeps school running, and the other way around during extreme cold with barely any snow at all.

How Much Snow Did Minneapolis Get? (Snowfall Averages)

The Twin Cities average around 54 inches of snow a year, based on the National Weather Service's 1981-2010 climate normal, which itself is about 8 inches higher than the longer 120-year average of roughly 47 inches. Most winters bring a handful of storms big enough to matter and a lot of smaller snows in between. On average, the metro sees a plowable snowfall of 2 inches or more only about 7 days a season.

Snow years vary a lot here. Some winters run well below average, like the 2024-25 season, when the Twin Cities had only about 16 inches on the ground by early February against a typical 32 inches for that point in the year. Other winters swing hard the other way, like the stretch of storms in early 2026 that buried the metro in more than a foot of snow in a single system and forced school closures across the region.

So if someone's asking how much snow did Minneapolis get this year, the honest answer depends heavily on which winter you're talking about. Check the calculator above for a live read on current conditions, since the seasonal average only tells you what a typical year looks like, not this one.

Major Minneapolis Snow Emergency in History: The Halloween Blizzard of 1991

Ask anyone who's lived in the Twin Cities long enough and they'll bring up the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. It started as light snow around 11:30 a.m. on Halloween day, an afternoon so mild that morning that some ski resorts were still making artificial snow. By the time it stopped on November 2nd, Minneapolis-St. Paul had recorded 28.4 inches from a single storm, still the largest single-storm snowfall total in Twin Cities history. Duluth took it even harder, with 36.9 inches, a state record at the time.

The storm shut down close to 900 schools and businesses, and doctors at one St. Paul hospital treated eight separate injuries from people losing fingertips to snow blowers. About 20 deaths across Minnesota were tied to the storm, with damages estimated near $11.7 million. What's remarkable, looking back, is how much of the city kept running anyway. Metro Transit buses stayed on the road until 8 p.m. that first night, and the airport never fully closed.

Minnesota's deadliest storm on record is actually an older one: the Armistice Day Blizzard of November 11-12, 1940. It caught hunters and commuters off guard with a sudden 50-degree temperature drop, winds up to 80 mph, and snowdrifts as high as 20 feet in parts of the Midwest. The Twin Cities recorded 16 inches, while Collegeville, Minnesota saw 27 inches. The storm killed 154 people across the region, many of them duck hunters trapped along the Mississippi River bottomlands with no warning it was coming.

Both storms are still the benchmark the National Weather Service uses when a new system rolls through Minneapolis. If a forecaster compares an incoming storm to 1991 or 1940, that's the local shorthand for "take this one seriously."

City of Minneapolis Snow: Zip Code List by Area

Snow totals and plowing schedules can look different from one side of Minneapolis to another, so checking your own zip code beats guessing from a single citywide number. Here are the main zip codes across the city:

  • 55401 — Downtown / North Loop
  • 55402 — Downtown East / Nicollet Mall
  • 55403 — Loring Park / Stevens Square
  • 55404 — Phillips / Whittier
  • 55405 — Lowry Hill / Kenwood / Bryn Mawr
  • 55406 — Longfellow / Seward
  • 55407 — Powderhorn / Standish
  • 55408 — Uptown / Lyn-Lake
  • 55409 — Kingfield / Tangletown
  • 55410 — Linden Hills / Fulton
  • 55411 — Near North / Willard-Hay
  • 55412 — Camden
  • 55413 — Northeast Minneapolis (South)
  • 55414 — Marcy-Holmes / Prospect Park (near the U of M)
  • 55417 — Minnehaha / Hiawatha
  • 55418 — Northeast Minneapolis (North) / Audubon Park
  • 55419 — East Harriet / Fulton

The calculator pulls current conditions for whichever zip code you enter, using National Weather Service data. Minneapolis has roughly 60 zip codes in total once you count outer neighborhoods and business-only codes, so if yours isn't listed above, the tool still works the same way.

How to Read the Minneapolis Snow Emergency Map

The city's snow emergency map trips up a lot of people, especially newer residents, because the rules change street by street and day by day. Here's the plain-language version.

Minneapolis splits its roughly 1,400 miles of streets and alleys into two groups. Snow Emergency Routes are the busier streets, marked with red snow emergency signs and blue street name signs. Everything else is a regular residential street, and most of those have either green or brown street name signs.

  • Day 1 (starts 9 p.m. the night the emergency is declared): No parking on either side of a Snow Emergency Route until the street is fully plowed. You can still park on regular streets.
  • Day 2 (starts 8 a.m. the next morning): No parking on the even-numbered side of non-Snow Emergency streets, and no parking on either side of parkways, until fully plowed. Crews plow these streets and the parkways this day.
  • Day 3 (starts 8 a.m.): No parking on the odd-numbered side of non-Snow Emergency streets until fully plowed. Crews finish the odd side.

"Fully plowed" means exactly what it sounds like: once your side of the street has been cleared curb to curb, you can park there again even if the snow emergency is technically still in effect elsewhere in the city. The city's online map lets you type in any address and see exactly which rule applies to that block on that day, which is a lot faster than trying to remember which sign color means what.

One more wrinkle: if the city has already put winter parking restrictions in place before a storm even hits, and then declares a snow emergency on top of that, the snow emergency rules always take priority until the emergency ends.

Minneapolis Snow Emergency Parking Guide

Getting caught on the wrong side of the street during a Minneapolis snow emergency means a ticket and a tow to the city impound lot, so it's worth having the rules down before the first real storm of the season.

  • A snow emergency is usually declared by 6 p.m., giving residents a few hours to move their cars before Day 1 rules start at 9 p.m.
  • The three-day cycle runs on its own schedule regardless of whether it keeps snowing, so check the calendar dates the city gives, not just how much snow is on the ground.
  • Sidewalks are separate from street parking. Minneapolis property owners have to clear their sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall for houses and duplexes, or within four daytime hours for other properties, or the city can bill them for the cleanup.
  • Winter parking restrictions can also kick in on their own, separate from a snow emergency, if snow piles get high enough along the curbs to block emergency vehicles. These can start up to 48 hours before a big storm even arrives.
  • You can call the Snow Emergency Hotline at (612) 348-SNOW (7669) or check the city's live parking map by address if you're not sure what applies to your block right now.

The single most common mistake: people hear "snow emergency" and assume it's the same three-day rule every time. It always follows the same Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 pattern, but the exact dates change with every storm, so it's worth double-checking rather than going off memory from the last one.

Snow Removal Minneapolis: What the City Clears vs. What's on You

The city handles plowing streets, alleys, and its Snow Emergency Route network, plus clearing snow along its own trails and parkways. Everything on private property, driveways, walkways, and parking lots, is the owner's job. That split is exactly why snow removal Minneapolis companies get booked up fast once a storm passes a few inches, so lining up a contractor before the forecast turns usually gets a faster response than calling once the snow is already down.

Residential Snow Removal Minneapolis

Residential snow removal Minneapolis services typically cover a driveway, front walkway, and entrance steps. Based on current 2026 pricing from Minneapolis-area contractors, here's what to expect:

Service type Typical price range What's usually included
Per-visit driveway plowing $40 - $100 Standard driveway, sometimes walkway included
Monthly plan $120 - $250 Unlimited or semi-unlimited visits during peak winter
Full seasonal contract $500 - $1,500 November through March, trigger depth usually 1.5-2 inches
Large or complex driveway, per season $1,100 - $1,400 Extra sidewalks, tight snow storage space, more frequent visits

Commercial Snow Removal Minneapolis

Commercial snow removal Minneapolis contracts cover parking lots, loading docks, and entrances, usually scheduled to be finished before a business opens for the day.

Property type Typical price range What's usually included
Small commercial lot, per push $150 - $330 Lot clearing, entrance and sidewalk snow, basic salt
Larger lot, per hour $45 - $155 Plowing, de-icing, and sanding for bigger parking areas
Seasonal commercial contract $2,000 - $10,000+ Full winter coverage, scaled to lot size and visit frequency

These are general market ranges, not fixed quotes. A property near downtown or Uptown with heavy foot traffic usually costs more to clear than a similarly sized lot further out, since liability and speed both matter more once people are walking through it all day.

Roof Snow Weight in Minneapolis

Minneapolis winters bring a mix of light, dry snow and heavier, wetter snow depending on the storm track, and that mix matters more for roof load than the depth alone.

  • Dry, powdery snow, common during clipper systems, is light and doesn't add much weight.
  • Wet, heavy snow from slower-moving systems weighs a lot more for the same depth.
  • Ice from freeze-thaw cycles adds more stress than fresh snow alone.
  • Flat or low-slope roofs, common on older Minneapolis bungalows, collect deeper buildup than steep, pitched roofs.

Treat the roof weight number from the calculator above as a starting point. If it looks high after a run of storms, especially after something on the scale of a multi-day system, get a roofer to take a look in person.

Explore More Winter Weather Tools

Keeping an eye on snow somewhere else too? Check our other city snow day and snowfall tools.

Official Minneapolis Winter Weather Resources

Before making a travel or school decision during a bigger storm, check these directly.

These cover official weather alerts, plowing schedules, and school closure announcements for Minneapolis.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is the Minneapolis Snow Day Calculator?

It's an estimate built from live temperature, wind, and forecast data, not an official decision. Minneapolis Public Schools makes the real call on closures, and the city makes a separate call on snow emergencies, usually announced by 6 p.m. or early the next morning.

How much snow usually closes schools in Minneapolis?

Bus delays tend to start once snowfall passes a few inches. District-wide closures or e-learning days usually need 6 inches or more, or dangerously cold wind chills, even without much snow on the ground at all.

What's the difference between a snow emergency and a school closure?

A snow emergency is a parking and plowing rule the city declares so crews can clear roughly 1,400 miles of streets. A school closure is a separate decision made by Minneapolis Public Schools. One can happen without the other.

How do I know if my street is a Snow Emergency Route?

Snow Emergency Routes have red emergency signs and blue street name signs. You can also look up your exact address on the city's online snow emergency map to see which day's rules apply to your block.

How much does residential snow removal cost in Minneapolis?

Per-visit driveway plowing generally runs $40 to $100, monthly plans run roughly $120 to $250, and full seasonal contracts run about $500 to $1,500 depending on driveway size and trigger depth.

What was the biggest snow emergency in Minneapolis history?

The Halloween Blizzard of 1991 is the storm most people still measure others against, with 28.4 inches falling on the Twin Cities in a single system. The Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940 was deadlier, killing 154 people across the region, though it dropped less snow locally at 16 inches.

How much snow did Minneapolis get this year?

Use the calculator above for a live number based on your zip code, or check the National Weather Service's Twin Cities station data for confirmed seasonal totals.

When should I book snow removal in Minneapolis?

Before the storm hits, ideally. Both residential and commercial snow removal Minneapolis providers fill up fast once snow is already on the ground, and per-visit pricing during an active storm often runs higher than a pre-booked seasonal contract.

Data Sources & References

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