Minnesota Weather: Weekend Storm Dumps Up To 12 Inches Of Snow In Southern Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- After a pretty mild and uneventful winter since the beginning of the New Year, parts of Minnesota are waking up Sunday to a fresh dose of snow on the ground.
According to the WCCO Weather Watcher network, some of the highest totals so far were recorded in south-central Minnesota, including 12.0″ in Westbrook, 10.5″ in Redwood Falls and 10.0″ in Tyler as of 9:30 a.m. (Live Weather Watcher Network snowfall reports can be found here.)
Snow will be heavy the next few hrs, but end late AM/early PM. @CityMinneapolis & @CityofSaintPaul will wind up with around 4-6"; more like 6-8" *just* south, more like 2-4" north metro. Join @esmemuprhy & me 6-7am on @WCCO and streaming live on CBSN Minnesota #mnwx #wiwx pic.twitter.com/yX8QnbxCvD
— Mike Augustyniak (@MikeAugustyniak) February 9, 2020
WCCO's meteorologist Mike Augustyniak says drivers can expect low visibility Sunday morning along with slippery road conditions.
Augustyniak says, at its peak, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area can expect snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour.
At @WCCO in @CityMinneapolis:
— Mike Augustyniak (@MikeAugustyniak) February 9, 2020
5:45am - 1.1" snow
7:30am - 3.6" snow
That's an average snowfall rate of about 1.4" per hour. #mnwx
For the most part, the snow should be moving out of Minnesota and into Wisconsin by early afternoon.
Minneapolis and St. Paul can expect somewhere between 3 and 6 inches. North of the metro area is looking at 1 to 3 inches.
The Minnesota State Patrol says that between 6 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Sunday, there were 133 crashes, 136 spin-outs and 1 jackknifed semi on Minnesota roads.
The crashes left 11 people hurt, but no fatalities.
Looking ahead at the following week, Augustyniak expects there to be a breezy and cold snap arriving Thursday, with overnight lows below zero, but things should return to average quickly after that.