“Pivot point” drove prolific snowfall, traffic gridlock

It snowed fast and hard Monday.

Snow tapers by midnight

Snow will gradually end by around midnight in most of the Twin Cities. Snowfall totals will easily reach 5 to 10 inches with a few totals to 12 inches or more possible.

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Pivot Point

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What meteorologists call a pivot point set up over southern Minnesota then the Twin Cities Monday. A pivot point is where the axis of heavy snow rotates around the bigger low pressure system. At that point, heavy snow bands just keep feeding over the same area. That nearly stationary heavy snow axis is what drove the prolific snowfall rates today.

Prolific snowfall totals

As I said last night on Twitter, this system had all the mechanics to produce heavy snow totals. A big chunk of southern Minnesota has seen over a foot of snow. Owatonna and Waseca are near ground zero with close to 17" of snow as of early Monday evening.

Twin Cities traffic gridlock

Anywhere from 5 to 10 inches of snow has fallen in the Twin Cities metro core so far. I'm seeing a couple reports close to a foot in the south metro. The sheer intensity of snowfall with rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour was just too much, too fast for road crews. Traffic gridlock is a reality in parts of the Twin Cities tonight.

Here's St. Paul.

https://twitter.com/CathyWurzer/status/955578379121709056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Stay safe out there Minnesota.