It was the wettest winter in 130 years, 6th snowiest so far and a MILD one... The snow will be what most remember probably from this winter but it was also rainy and relatively mild, despite a cold start in December.
One of the wettest winters ever recorded
Depending on how far back you go in the data, it was either the wettest or second wettest meteorological (December-January-February) winter for the Twin Cities. The winter of 1880-1881 measured a whopping 9.58 inches of precipitation.
Interestingly, we didn’t keep track of snowfall records until 1884 in the Twin Cities, had that January of 1881 been included, it was cold enough every date that measured precipitation that it would be one of our snowiest Januarys of record.
Records back to 1893 considered the most reliable, i.e. our modern record, and in that case we were number one. Most regions of Minnesota in fact, ranked number one for precipitation this winter:
We received 6.45 inches of precipitation (that includes snowfall as liquid equivalent), that’s a whopping 3.53 inches above normal, more than double the normal value. Some places saw nearly triple the normal winter precipitation which is incredible.
It wasn’t just the Twin Cities, large areas from southwest Minnesota up to the North Shore of Lake Superior saw two to even three times normal precipitation. Of course for most, that precipitation came in the form of snowfall, lots of it.
An unusually large area saw 48 to 72+ inches of snow from southwest Minnesota through the Twin Cities and up the North Shore. For the Twin Cities, our seasonal snowfall total (which includes the fall) is up to 71 inches, putting us at the 6th snowiest to date. That’s 80% more than normal. In Duluth the total is up to 93.3 inches, 41% more than normal.
Interestingly in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota, we had three significant rainfall events, totaling nearly 1.50 inches of liquid rain from mid January through late February. If it had been just a few degrees colder, we’d have seen easily at least 15 to 20 inches additional snowfall, clinching the number one spot.
Is this winter symptomatic of our warming winters? Higher moisture content (a warmer atmosphere holds more water) producing more snow since it’s still cold enough to produce snow more often than rain but also with substantial rainfalls? Eventually, as Minnesota’s climate continues to warm, we become more like Des Moines or Kansas City by the end of this century and rain may outweigh the snowfall, at least in the early and late parts of winter.
It was generally a mild winter with a couple exceptions
It may come as a surprise that it was a relatively mild winter for most of Minnesota. The Twin Cities averaged +0.4 degrees F above normal, which doesn’t sound like a lot but remember ‘normal’ is our modern 1991-2020 average, which is already substantially above the historical record. If you compare this winter to the first half of our records (1873-1948), it was a whopping +3.4 degrees F above average. In fact, just +0.4 degrees F above normal puts us in the top 25% of winters for temperatures in the Twin Cities.
Here’s how other stations stacked up across the state:
+0.4 Minneapolis-St. Paul
+1.2 Saint Cloud
+1.3 Duluth
+1.3 International Falls
-2.6 Fargo-Moorhead
+0.7 Rochester
-1.4 Pipestone
As you can see, just the northwest and southwest pockets of Minnesota averaged cooler than normal. What’s remarkable about these numbers is that this was a rare ‘triple dip La Nina’ season which should have had more widespread cooler than normal conditions. In fact, in the Twin Cities, two of the three winters have been slightly warmer than normal but if you extract the amount of warming we’ve seen over the decades, all three would have been cooler than normal.
Last winter was indeed cooler than the modern ‘normal’ statewide, but was right in the middle with our longer term full historical average.
Across the northern hemisphere, the entire eastern half of the country was warmer than normal with notable ‘hot spots’ once again in the high arctic. Europe was also quite warm this winter.
While it was cooler for Minnesota last winter, this winter was actually slightly cooler than last on a northern hemisphere wide scale by about 0.3 degrees F.
Is winter done?
While for record keeping, meteorological winter is done, we still keep adding the seasonal snowfall until it stops whether that’s March or April, or even May! It is likely we will finish in the top 10 for seasonal snowfalls and could even move up in the rankings if we can continue to be stormy through March and April. In order for that stormy weather to yield snow however, we’ll need to buck the trend of mild temperatures and be colder than normal in March and April.
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