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Last Hurrah: Morning snow showers candy coating

Posted at 7:31 AM on April 20, 2011 by Paul Huttner (3 Comments)
Filed under: Winter storms, Winter/spring 2011

The surprising weather system which spared the metro snowfall accumulations on Tuesday has one more twist today.

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As a sort of "last hurrah" the system is cranking out a last band of snow showers. With temperatures just above freezing, the snow band is enough to produce some grassy accumulations, with snow melting on pavement at the weather lab in the west metro.

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PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TWIN CITIES/CHANHASSEN MN
709 AM CDT WED APR 20 2011

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0709 AM SNOW PLYMOUTH 45.02N 93.46W
04/20/2011 M2.2 INCH HENNEPIN MN TRAINED SPOTTER

0700 AM SNOW ST CLOUD 45.55N 94.17W
04/20/2011 M2.0 INCH STEARNS MN OFFICIAL NWS OBS

0643 AM SNOW KIMBALL 45.31N 94.30W
04/20/2011 M2.0 INCH STEARNS MN CO-OP OBSERVER


Expect the snow showers to taper from west to east today, and be a melted memory by later today.

PH

Comments (3)

The real question is if we have any shot at moving up the all-time list of snowiest winters? Looks like we can hit #4, but is #3 possible?

If it's going to snow in April, I at least want bragging rights.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | April 20, 2011 10:11 AM

I could not agree more with Kevin's Comment!!! I would love an article with all the records etc for latest date it ever snowed in April, or even May. Records for snow on each date for the rest of the month? Something to tell us that this is *not* a normal MN Spring! (But then again, what is?) :)

Posted by Sara Murray | April 20, 2011 10:56 AM

Paul will do a much better job I'm sure. Here's a few quick facts. April average 3.1" of snow. Depending on the final count today might still be a little short this month. Month to date up 3.1 degrees so it's been warmer than average. April 30 3.1" of snow in 1984. (Now thinking about playing 3.1 in lotto). 8.5" was the record for today in 1893.

Records for May have a trace or better almost every day. 3" on May 20th in 1892 is the last "big event". Most days before that there is a couple tenths to a couple inches. After is mostly traces or 0. In 1954 record snow 3 out for the first 7 days of May. And in 1946 3 straight days of record snow 10-12 (for a grand total of 3" over the 3 days). 1991 is the only modern date after that with 0.3 on the 5th of May.

In my estimation this April has been about as close to normal as one would expect.

Quick link to weather data by day for the last 10 years: http://climate.umn.edu/doc/prelim_lcd_msp.htm

Records I got from my handy Freshwater Society Weather Calendar. (Which Mark Seeley is a contributor)

Posted by Chris | April 20, 2011 1:53 PM

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