The Twin Cities lackluster snow season

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It’s been a pretty dismal year for snow for much of Minnesota.  While some local spots, like Goodhue county for example, have seen an almost average snow season, most areas of the state, and much of Wisconsin for that matter, have barely received half of their yearly snow… and we’re starting to run out of time.  While it can and has snowed in the Twin Cities into early May, it’s pretty rare to get anything more than a couple of inches passed the first of April.  That means that if we are going to make up ground in our snow deficit, it’s pretty much now or never.

Well, a storm on Sunday and early Monday may do just that.  While it’s not going to be the largest of storms by any stretch of the imagination, it could help get parts of the state 6 inches or more of snow.  While this doesn’t exactly help out the snowmobilers, hunters, or ice fisherman anymore (I’d say those activities are done for the year), it does add moisture to the ground.  This can help shorten the spring fire season, bug season, and push back the spring bloom.  While many look forward to the spring bloom, if it happens too early, then many plants can be decimated by a late season frost if one were to occur.

The metro averages about 54 inches of snow during the cold season and so far, we have seen about half that with just a few weeks to go.  This puts us in the bottom 20th percentile for snowfall in a season, with records dating back to 1872.  Roughly just 2 dozen years since 1880 have seen their snow season come up shy of 30 inches.