The amount of water entering Minnesota lakes and rivers (especially north) is staggering this spring. Water levels are high pretty much statewide after a wet spring has brought above normal snowfall to northern Minnesota and above normal precipitation elsewhere. The obvious impact has been felt this spring in our rivers but also lakes, especially in northern Minnesota.
We started spring with lots of snow already in much of northeast Minnesota. The map below shows the equivalent amount of water (in inches) in the snow pack on March 20th, 2022.
Once spring got going, parts of northwest Minnesota saw triple their normal precipitation for the past 60 days while much of northeast Minnesota and pockets of central Minnesota (including the Twin Cities) saw double normal precipitation.
That rainfall combined with above normal snowfall added A LOT of water to the watersheds. Up to two to three feet for late March into the start of May fell in northeast Minnesota! All that extra precipitation (rain and snow) ends up in one of two places in northeast Minnesota; either Lake Superior or the Lake of the Woods/Rainy Lake watersheds.
Lake of the Woods is up 3 to 4 feet this spring. Upper and Lower Red Lakes are up 2 feet. The increases are less as you go south but still high. Lake Mille Lacs is up almost 1.5 feet and Lake Minnetonka is up a foot.
The BIG question you may have is what about the BIG lake? It takes A LOT of water to raise the levels of Superior since it’s such a large surface area. Weather can vary substantially on the west or east side of it since there’s over 350 miles between Duluth and Sault Ste. Marie.
Lake Superior also is up about a foot just in the last 6 weeks. That is a huge increase for a lake that size. An increase of a foot equates to 6.6 trillion gallons of water or to put that in perspective 47 Lake Minnetonka equivalents!
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