Image source: National Weather Service (Weather Ready Nation program).
The 2025-2026 winter has been dominated by prevailing winds coming from the northwest, leading to a large number of fast-moving winter weather systems bringing generally light or powdery snow, strong winds, and falling temperatures to Minnesota. These "Alberta Clippers" (or just "clippers") are common winter weather systems that originate on the Prairies of southwestern or western Canada, and track southeastward into the Upper Midwest region of the US.
As of January 29, 2026, Minnesota has had 24 clippers affecting the state. These systems have not been tracked historically and can be difficult to identify, so no true climatology exists for them. In general, though, they tend to be most common in the heart of winter, from mid-January into mid-February.
Coming from the semi-arid prairies and usually remaining far from ocean moisture until they are past Minnesota, clipper systems are best known for their large temperature changes, strong winds, and light snow that blows around easily. Although occasionally these storms can acquire deep moisture and produce large snowfall accumulations, they are better known for their light accumulations but violent blowing and drifting in open country, leading to whiteouts and dangerous "ground blizzards."
Cold winters with active northwesterly flow tend to produce a lot of clippers. In the 2021-22 winter, the state had over 30 clippers but climatologists and meteorologists eventually lost count! Snowy winters with multiple heavy snowstorms, like the winter of 2022-23, usually feature more of the large and relatively slow-moving systems coming from the west or southwest, cutting into the clipper totals in those winters.
In Minnesota, virtually all winter storms are associated with areas of low pressure (also called "low-pressure systems," "mid-latitude cyclones," or "extratropical cyclones"). In addition to southwestern Canada, other common origin regions include the area from southeastern Colorado to the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, and central Wyoming into southern Montana. The infamous Halloween Blizzard took an unusual path, starting near Houston, Texas and charging nearly straight up the Mississippi River. Some clipper-type systems originate in Arctic regions of northern Canada.
January 29, 2026
KAB and PJB