College Town Blizzard.

I am pretty sure my house at 2 Chester Parkway would have been on the high end of the snowfall.
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Duluth News-Tribune 1/27/04

Snowfall nears record
WINTER STORM:Waves of wind joined with Lake Superior moisture to dump 2 feet of snow on North Shore hilltops.
BY MELANIE EVANS AND JOHN MYERS
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

If you live on top of the hill and are sick of shoveling or snowblowing, just call a friend who lives down near the lake.

It's possible they didn't even work up a sweat.

A major winter storm combined with wind off Lake Superior to give Duluth more than 2 feet of snow from Sunday into Monday.

The National Weather Service at Duluth International Airport reported 24.8 inches of snow as of 8 p.m. Monday. And the 23.2 inches that fell before 4 p.m. was the third-highest 24-hour snow total on record in Duluth.

Lower-elevation areas -- such as downtown Duluth, Morgan Park and Lakeside -- received only 6 to 8 inches of snow, less than half the hilltop totals.

Areas of Northwestern Wisconsin and north of the Iron Range received even less.

Patti Olson, a Daugherty Hardware & Appliance employee, awoke Monday to 20 inches of snow outside her Rice Lake Township home. The impressive blanket was a pleasant surprise.

"It's just about time we had a normal winter," she said.

Daugherty's owner, Scott Lundberg, barely noticed the dusting at his Poplar home. "I got two inches," he said.

It's not uncommon for the Twin Ports to see significant snow discrepancies because of topography and Lake Superior's unique effect. But it's been so long since we've had a normal winter that many people forget.

All of the Northland received at least some snow as a giant low pressure system moved east across the nation's heartland. But higher elevations from Duluth to Two Harbors and on to Isabella received an extra boost from the lake and elevation effect, ending up with more than 20 inches.

Craig Sanders, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Duluth, said the counterclockwise rotation around the low pressure system sent waves of already moist air over Lake Superior and right at Duluth. The lake added additional moisture.

When east winds pushed the air into the hillside, it rose rapidly, and the moisture was squeezed out at the top of the hills as snow. Lots of snow.

"In this case, it's the elevation effect as much as it is the lake effect," Sanders said.

Strong winds piled drifts more than three feet high in upper Woodland, Kenwood and Hermantown. Plows battled all day to keep up.

"I've been dealing with snow since 5 a.m. Lots of shoveling and snowblowing and plowing," said Roger Truscott, who manages the Woodland Avenue Spur adjacent to his home.

"It's a lot of work, and I'm really happy," said Truscott, an outdoor enthusiast who spent Sunday snowmobiling near Finland. "It needs to be like this every year," he said. "If you don't like the snow, there's a place called Florida."

Kathryn Fuller found a dry place to perch while waiting for a Duluth Transit Authority bus at the corner of Woodland and Minneapolis avenues.

The University of Minnesota Duluth reference librarian stood on top of a bus bench to escape a snowbank.

"It isn't much of a bench," she said, after climbing down for fear she would miss her bus. "It's kind of narrow."

The university, Lake Superior College and the College of St. Scholastica closed Monday because of the storm. Fuller ventured out to "get out of the house," she said. "It's beautiful."

The Sunday-Monday storm deposited significantly less than the all-time Duluth snowfalls of 36.9 inches, set Oct. 31-Nov. 3, 1991, and 33.1 inches, set from Dec. 5-7, 1950.

And Monday's heaviest snow was focused in such a small area that the storm didn't pack nearly the broad impact of the 1991 Halloween storm, which dumped more than two feet across all of Minnesota and much of northern Wisconsin.

Monday's snow was lighter than many large dumpings we receive.

But the accumulation caused more than 100 schools and school districts in Minnesota to either cancel or delay classes for Monday, including in Duluth and most of the surrounding towns.

Lake Superior College junior Tom Coles slept instead of studied Monday morning after the snow day postponed a human anatomy quiz.

Coles and Joseph Best, also a Lake Superior College junior, ventured out to buy sleds, and planned to spend the evening watching basketball.

Brothers Garrett and Tim Clemenson built forts in the side yard of their Central Hillside home.

Across Minnesota, snowfall amounts ranged from four inches on the Iron Range and more than six inches in the Twin Cities to more than 16 inches in New York Mills, Ada and Pequot Lakes.

Snow was expected to end overnight in most areas as bitter cold air retakes the region. Highs today will struggle into the single digits above zero and wind chills Tuesday night will hit -30 degrees or lower in some areas.

There's a chance of light snow on Tuesday night, especially along the Ontario border.






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