Good morning, Minnesota!

A winter weather advisory is in effect for most of Minnesota Tuesday through Wednesday morning as a major winter storm targets the state this afternoon. 

This time, the heaviest snowfalls will stay mostly in southern Minnesota, with up to 6 inches of snow expected. The Twin Cities may see 3 to 4 inches of snow. While this storm will likely cause some travel problems, it won't be as severe as the blizzard last week. Today's storm will not bring extremely high winds and its center will pass south of the state, instead of directly over Minnesota.  

Follow along with the latest updates on the weather and road conditions on the Updraft  and our severe weather live blog throughout today.

In March, we met Melanie Van Alst, a school bus driver in Little Falls, who hand-delivered meals and sometimes homework to students there. Nine months later, schools remain closed due to COVID-19, and she awaits students' return. 

Little Falls schools were able to bring students back to their classrooms after summer break until a surge in COVID-19 cases in the region forced in-person learning to halt again last month. Bus drivers like Van Alst are no longer behind the wheel, as students stay home and families pick school meals up themselves. "I miss the kids so much.” says Van Alst. “Little kids want to call come by and see me …  because they miss me, too. And it's so heart-wrenching."

Hopeful signs continue in Minnesota's COVID-19 numbers. 

New cases and deaths in the state are still trending downward, but part of those numbers may be due to a holiday effect over Christmas when the Health Department paused testing at community testing sites. The number of active, confirmed cases in Minnesota is below 14,000 for the first time since late October. 

• 5,160 deaths (13 new)
• 410,138 positive cases (1,087 new), 388,919 off isolation (about 95 percent)
• 5.5 million tests, 3 million people tested (about 52 percent of the population)
• 5.2 percent seven-day positive test rate (officials find 5 percent concerning)

Initial state aid payments for businesses won't help some Minnesota restaurants struggling with the latest round of COVID-19 restrictions. 

That’s because they were able to make up ground over the summer when restrictions loosened for a while. State officials say they had to draw the line somewhere and wanted to design a program that could get money out the door quickly. That means some restaurants affected by state restrictions won’t qualify for initial checks because their sales didn’t drop steeply enough, despite their falloff in revenue.