Weather May-Hem: 6″ to 15″; Trees down, Power out to 26k; State snowfall record

Major May "Winter" Storm Sideswipes Metro

This is "The Big One" for May snowstorms in Minnesota. At least for May 2nd.

My MPR colleague Mark Seeley tells me Dodge Center's 15.4" just broke the all time sate snowfall record for May 2nd.

Here's the MPR live blog to keep track of the latest snowfall and damage reports as they come into NWS.

Metro: Tale of two forecasts

Drive half an hour east in the Twin Cities today and you will be forgiven if you feel like you entered another time zone.

In the west metro some clouds and a cool breeze. In the east & southeast metro, wind driven wet cement, tree snapping snow that feels like entering a time warp back to March.

11" just across the border near Hudson with snowy conditions on I-94 east of the metro?

8" of heavy wet concrete snow in Cottage Grove in the southeast metro?

13" to 15.5" in Owatonna south of the metro along I-35??

Deep snow blankets Owatonna this morning.

Image courtesy Larry Keltto

I hope MNDOT kept a few plows in ready condition into May.

In this Updraft we count up the inches and document a remarkable May snow event for a relatively narrow slice of southeast Minnesota, the eastern metro and western Wisconsin.

Last night's last minute eastward shift of about 30 miles spared the central metro core from significant snowfall, and from breaking any snowfall records at MSP Airport. Just don't tell that to folks in Cottage Grove, Owatonna, Red Wing, Hastings and Ellsworth who are digging out from 6" to um... 15 inches of heavy wet snow on May 2nd.

Image: Twin Cities NWS

Snow smashed car in Faribault.

Image courtesy Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Snow continues east:

The band of heavy snowfall continues to run from southeast Minnesota, right up into the east metro into western Wisconsin. These areas can expect several more hours of heavy snow into this afternoon.

-Here's the latest Twin Cities radar loop.

Razor's Edge: Remarkably sharp cutoff on metro snow

I've seen a lot of storms in nearly 30 years of forecasting weather in Minnesota.

I've never seen a storm quite like this one...especially in May.

This was not your typical, textbook Minnesota winter storm. Not even close. Atmospheric conditions were just right for a very narrow, SW to NE oriented band producing extremely heavy snow overnight. The band of heavy snow was only about 2 counties wide. Dry air cut into the western side of this unusually elongated system...and effectively wiped out snowfall production in the western and central metro.

Check out the remarkably sharp cutoff on the systems back edge which waffled over the eastern metro overnight.

Image: WxUnderground

No gradually lighter snow to flurries zone here. It was literally all or nothing...from a wet smack to not a flake in the sky in a city block.

Remarkable.

Prolific snowfall totals: Metro near miss

We just missed the central core of the heaviest snowfall band in the heart of the Twin Cities.

But as expected they got smacked along an Albert Lea- Owatonna-Red Wing-Hastings-Cottage Grove-Ellsworth-New Richmond zone.

Check out some of the eye popping snowfall totals coming into the Weather Lab via Twin Cities NWS.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN

901 AM CDT THU MAY 02 2013

...SNOWFALL AMOUNTS FROM THE MAY 1ST-2ND SNOW STORM...

THE TOTALS BELOW ARE SEPARATED INTO SNOW...AND ICE AND SLEET

CATEGORIES...THEN BY AMOUNT...AND ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE

FINAL AMOUNT FOR EACH LOCATION.

SNOW REPORTS LISTED BY AMOUNT

INCHES LOCATION ST COUNTY TIME

------ ----------------------- -- -------------- -------

15.50 2 E OWATONNA MN STEELE 0730 AM

15.00 SW ELLENDALE MN STEELE 0800 AM

14.70 BALDWIN WI ST. CROIX 0743 AM

14.00 BARRON WI BARRON 0754 AM

MANY TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN.

14.00 ELLSWORTH WI PIERCE 0540 AM

12.50 3 NNW NERSTRAND MN RICE 0830 AM

12.00 5 NE RICE LAKE WI BARRON 0815 AM

12.00 HAUGEN WI BARRON 0815 AM

12.00 CUMBERLAND WI BARRON 0623 AM

11.50 CLEAR LAKE WI POLK 0751 AM

11.50 CONGER MN FREEBORN 0553 AM

11.00 WELLS MN FARIBAULT 0729 AM

10.80 5 NE WHEELER WI DUNN 0855 AM

10.50 BOYCEVILLE WI DUNN 0823 AM

NUMEROUS POWER LINES AND TREE BRANCHES DOWN.

10.00 RED WING MN GOODHUE 0757 AM

TREE DAMAGE REPORTED. THOUSANDS WITHOUT POWER

EARLIER THIS MORNING.

10.00 WASECA MN WASECA 0729 AM

10.00 BRICELYN MN FARIBAULT 0729 AM

10.00 RICE LAKE WI BARRON 0651 AM

10.00 ALBERT LEA MN FREEBORN 0529 AM

9.50 MENOMONIE WI DUNN 0720 AM

9.00 COLFAX WI DUNN 0815 AM

9.00 1 S HUDSON WI ST. CROIX 0733 AM

9.00 1 SW BOYCEVILLE WI DUNN 0643 AM

9.00 3 SE RIVER FALLS WI PIERCE 0620 AM

8.40 HASTINGS MN DAKOTA 0510 AM

8.30 5 S FARMINGTON MN DAKOTA 0554 AM

8.00 2 SE COTTAGE GROVE MN WASHINGTON 0510 AM

POWER OUTAGE AND TREE DAMAGE REPORTED.

7.50 4 NW ARKANSAW WI PEPIN 0646 AM

7.50 NEW RICHMOND WI ST. CROIX 0529 AM

Trees down & Power out:

As you can see from the reports, the heavy wet snow is taking down tree limbs and power lines in Red Wing, Cottage Grove and other locations under the heavy snow band.

As of 10:00 am 26,623 customers are without power. Here's the Xcel Energy outage map.

Paul Huttner