If you’re a casual follower of this website and have been wondering what I have been doing for the last several months, pretty much nothing. There is nothing to chase for winter weather in Central Minnesota.
This season is nonexistent, with a total snowfall here in Saint Cloud, MN; this winter, we’re at 11.0 inches from December until this weekend. That is less than a foot of snow when last winter, St. Cloud recorded a whopping 88.2 inches for the season, just edging out the old record of 87.9 inches from 1964-65, per the MN DNR.
We typically average about 24 inches at this point in the winter season, and the bulk of our moisture that helped us with the drought came as heavy rain over the Christmas holiday.
We can’t forget about the temperatures. As I write this under the full moon’s light, the outside air temp is 36 degrees F. The forecast for the next few days is for temperatures to be almost into the 60s, with a slight chance of snow later in the week.
The ground is not frozen, the trees are about to be budding, and our winter is just one that has everyone saying, after last winter, we needed this.
So, what does all this mean for the upcoming spring season? Nothing. El Nino will continue to mess up all the forecasts and change the weather for the next several months, if not for the rest of the year, from our typical weather.