The numbers are in: How much snow fell on Minnesota earlier this week?
Mike Madsen clears snow off of a driveway at a house he said he recently purchased on Sixth Street in Marshall on Monday, as a late season snowstorm continued to fall.
Jackson Forderer for MPR News
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Our multi-day snowstorm is taking its own sweet time exiting the region. It was still snowing in parts of northern Minnesota Wednesday afternoon as the system headed east. MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer with snow totals from the first half of the week.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: Our multi-day snow storm is taking its own sweet time exiting the region. As I mentioned, it's still snowing in parts of northern Minnesota right now, as the system heads east. That was a significant snowfall, which also added much needed moisture to the state. MPR chief meteorologist Paul Huttner is here to give us the final numbers on this storm earlier this week. Well, that was a heck of a storm, I have to say.
PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, and it went on for days and days and days. I loved your Morning Edition reference because it's been like that with the weather, right? We had snow last Thursday, Sunday, rain, Monday, snow. It's all kind of a blur at this point, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: It's like the Groundhog's Day. The movie, Groundhog Day? Yeah.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yes, one of my favorites. Love it. So this has been the biggest snowfall event of the season for most of Minnesota. This three-day storm brought us snow in the Twin Cities Sunday, rain on Monday, snow again Tuesday. It was all the same low pressure system, Cathy. Very slow mover. Crept up from Colorado and then down into the Central Plains, and finally up toward Minnesota yesterday.
Here's some of the incredible totals. We had one to two feet of snow. Eight miles west of Duluth, 24.9 inches. So that's two feet of snow. Baxter had two feet of snow. Brainerd Lakes area, 24.7. A little place west of Gull Lake called Casino, Minnesota-- I didn't know there was a Casino, Minnesota-- 22.8 inches.
I see right around Two Harbors, a little west of there, 21.2. Lester Park, east side of Duluth, 20.6. Brainerd area, 20 in town. 10 as far northwest as Bemidji. And then you get down to the Twin Cities. We had 12.1 inches, a cool foot of snow here, and 6 to 12, really, around most of southern Minnesota. Marshall had 8 and 1/2. Rochester area, 6 to 7. So this was a very, very productive system, Cathy. As I said, biggest one of the snow season.
CATHY WURZER: Well, good. I'm glad to hear that we got the snow that many of you meteorologists said we would because right after that first dump, there were people who were complaining like, oh, we didn't get the snow, you know. But obviously, we did.
PAUL HUTTNER: They're always wrong.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, I know, I know. We clearly got that snow. So, I'm wondering, then, when you melt all that snow, how much liquid is in that snowpack.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, there was quite a bit. The Twin Cities, we had 2.32 inches of liquid, so about 2 and 1/3 inches. That's like a 2 and 1/3 inch rain. And that snow to water ratio was 8 to 1. That's a very wet cement snow. Our average is probably 10 or 12 to 1 in Minnesota. And even in those clippers in winter, it can be 20 to 1 or greater, that fluffy stuff. Duluth had about 1.67 inches.
Year to date, Twin Cities, Cathy, we caught up with our overall precipitation total, 3.29 inches so far. That's about a 10th of an inch now above normal. Now, the drought monitor comes out tomorrow. I think it will likely show a one category improvement in parts of Minnesota, maybe most of Minnesota.
Some of that precip didn't make it in before the, I think around 7:00 AM Tuesday deadline. But boy, this was a great storm. It really put us on a good path. And if we can get about two, maybe three, more of these by the time we get into the growing season, we should be in pretty good shape.
CATHY WURZER: Hmm, Mr. Huttner, do you think that that is possible, looking at the long range forecasts?
PAUL HUTTNER: There was a big storm. Some of the models were winding up again in about 10 days. It's disappeared today. So I don't see anything in the next two weeks. But hey, there's still a good chance. It's spring. We'll likely get a couple of rain systems in here.
CATHY WURZER: You'd think so, right? So, where do we stand for the seasonal snowfall totals? We still have to be behind, though.
PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, we are. We've had a little over half of our season normal of 52 inches. 29.5 at Twin Cities Airport now. Duluth, 36.6. Normal season to date is about 79 inches.
CATHY WURZER: Wow.
PAUL HUTTNER: Remember last year, they had, what, 120 or some crazy record number for Duluth. And we had 90 inches in the Twin Cities. So, way behind normal and way behind last year.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so, this coming weekend, holiday weekend for many people, any warm-up in sight?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, temperatures will moderate. We're in the mid 20s today across much of Minnesota. Tomorrow, 34 with sunshine in the Twin Cities, 20s up north. Then just a slight chance of a shower Friday and again on Sunday. Highs, low to mid 40s, Twin Cities, mostly 30s in northern Minnesota.
But Cathy, it gets milder again next week. The forecast model is pumping 40s in here Monday, 50s into the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota by next Tuesday and Wednesday. And a little too early to jump for joy just yet, but I notice the NOAA's GFS models cranking out some 60s--
CATHY WURZER: What?
PAUL HUTTNER: --late next week, Thursday, Friday, maybe even into the following weekend. We will see. The European model has it pretty mild, too. So it looks like we will be significantly milder about a week or eight days from now.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so obviously, this little blip of winter just Mother Nature reminding us that it actually can snow around here, which is good. Say, Climate Cast this week.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, so there's an interesting new paper from the Journal of Communications and Climate Change. It says that climate change has been a factor in inflation, in food prices specifically, that these heat waves and these drought events have kind of-- they've been able to tease it out and measure it out. So, we're going to dig into that more today, and that'll be up on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.
CATHY WURZER: All right, that sounds great. Thank you so much for your work all this week.
PAUL HUTTNER: Appreciate it. Thanks, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. That is our chief meteorologist, Paul Huttner. Of course, you can listen to Paul and my colleague, Tom Crann, this afternoon on All Things Considered. If you want to be updated on the weather at any time, you can go to the Updraft blog. You can find that at mprnews.org.
PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, and it went on for days and days and days. I loved your Morning Edition reference because it's been like that with the weather, right? We had snow last Thursday, Sunday, rain, Monday, snow. It's all kind of a blur at this point, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: It's like the Groundhog's Day. The movie, Groundhog Day? Yeah.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yes, one of my favorites. Love it. So this has been the biggest snowfall event of the season for most of Minnesota. This three-day storm brought us snow in the Twin Cities Sunday, rain on Monday, snow again Tuesday. It was all the same low pressure system, Cathy. Very slow mover. Crept up from Colorado and then down into the Central Plains, and finally up toward Minnesota yesterday.
Here's some of the incredible totals. We had one to two feet of snow. Eight miles west of Duluth, 24.9 inches. So that's two feet of snow. Baxter had two feet of snow. Brainerd Lakes area, 24.7. A little place west of Gull Lake called Casino, Minnesota-- I didn't know there was a Casino, Minnesota-- 22.8 inches.
I see right around Two Harbors, a little west of there, 21.2. Lester Park, east side of Duluth, 20.6. Brainerd area, 20 in town. 10 as far northwest as Bemidji. And then you get down to the Twin Cities. We had 12.1 inches, a cool foot of snow here, and 6 to 12, really, around most of southern Minnesota. Marshall had 8 and 1/2. Rochester area, 6 to 7. So this was a very, very productive system, Cathy. As I said, biggest one of the snow season.
CATHY WURZER: Well, good. I'm glad to hear that we got the snow that many of you meteorologists said we would because right after that first dump, there were people who were complaining like, oh, we didn't get the snow, you know. But obviously, we did.
PAUL HUTTNER: They're always wrong.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, I know, I know. We clearly got that snow. So, I'm wondering, then, when you melt all that snow, how much liquid is in that snowpack.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, there was quite a bit. The Twin Cities, we had 2.32 inches of liquid, so about 2 and 1/3 inches. That's like a 2 and 1/3 inch rain. And that snow to water ratio was 8 to 1. That's a very wet cement snow. Our average is probably 10 or 12 to 1 in Minnesota. And even in those clippers in winter, it can be 20 to 1 or greater, that fluffy stuff. Duluth had about 1.67 inches.
Year to date, Twin Cities, Cathy, we caught up with our overall precipitation total, 3.29 inches so far. That's about a 10th of an inch now above normal. Now, the drought monitor comes out tomorrow. I think it will likely show a one category improvement in parts of Minnesota, maybe most of Minnesota.
Some of that precip didn't make it in before the, I think around 7:00 AM Tuesday deadline. But boy, this was a great storm. It really put us on a good path. And if we can get about two, maybe three, more of these by the time we get into the growing season, we should be in pretty good shape.
CATHY WURZER: Hmm, Mr. Huttner, do you think that that is possible, looking at the long range forecasts?
PAUL HUTTNER: There was a big storm. Some of the models were winding up again in about 10 days. It's disappeared today. So I don't see anything in the next two weeks. But hey, there's still a good chance. It's spring. We'll likely get a couple of rain systems in here.
CATHY WURZER: You'd think so, right? So, where do we stand for the seasonal snowfall totals? We still have to be behind, though.
PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, we are. We've had a little over half of our season normal of 52 inches. 29.5 at Twin Cities Airport now. Duluth, 36.6. Normal season to date is about 79 inches.
CATHY WURZER: Wow.
PAUL HUTTNER: Remember last year, they had, what, 120 or some crazy record number for Duluth. And we had 90 inches in the Twin Cities. So, way behind normal and way behind last year.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so, this coming weekend, holiday weekend for many people, any warm-up in sight?
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, temperatures will moderate. We're in the mid 20s today across much of Minnesota. Tomorrow, 34 with sunshine in the Twin Cities, 20s up north. Then just a slight chance of a shower Friday and again on Sunday. Highs, low to mid 40s, Twin Cities, mostly 30s in northern Minnesota.
But Cathy, it gets milder again next week. The forecast model is pumping 40s in here Monday, 50s into the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota by next Tuesday and Wednesday. And a little too early to jump for joy just yet, but I notice the NOAA's GFS models cranking out some 60s--
CATHY WURZER: What?
PAUL HUTTNER: --late next week, Thursday, Friday, maybe even into the following weekend. We will see. The European model has it pretty mild, too. So it looks like we will be significantly milder about a week or eight days from now.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so obviously, this little blip of winter just Mother Nature reminding us that it actually can snow around here, which is good. Say, Climate Cast this week.
PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, so there's an interesting new paper from the Journal of Communications and Climate Change. It says that climate change has been a factor in inflation, in food prices specifically, that these heat waves and these drought events have kind of-- they've been able to tease it out and measure it out. So, we're going to dig into that more today, and that'll be up on Climate Cast tomorrow during All Things Considered.
CATHY WURZER: All right, that sounds great. Thank you so much for your work all this week.
PAUL HUTTNER: Appreciate it. Thanks, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. That is our chief meteorologist, Paul Huttner. Of course, you can listen to Paul and my colleague, Tom Crann, this afternoon on All Things Considered. If you want to be updated on the weather at any time, you can go to the Updraft blog. You can find that at mprnews.org.
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