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.
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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