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Monday, October 12, 2009

Unusually Early, Mid October Wintry system, Minor snow accumulations across the area, One to Remember!

Snowy Green Apple Tree in our Yard Oct 11th.

A Fairly Unusual Wintry System impacted the area Monday Bringing minor snow accumulations across the entire area. Now it's not completely Unheard of to see this much snow in Mid October but, it is definitely very unusual, According to the NWS it has been 60 years since the region has seen 2 measurable snowfalls this early in October, What caused the snow is a cold, long lasting air mass has been stuck over the area since Thursday But Saturday is when Very cold air was drawn in from Canada and this put highs only in the upper 30s and lows in the 20s, this allowed all the preip from a passing low pressure system to be all snow, This is what made the way for our 1st Wintry System of the season!

Reports



Snowfall Reports, ( may now be final report this may need to be updated)


Most places saw between 1-3 Inches of snow from this system, Which is actually fairly significant snowfall for Oct standards, The Average Snow for the entire month of October is just a half Inch! The Highest snowfall total came from Dirks area at 3.20" There wasn't any reports for Washburn or Burnett Counties so I went with an estimate from nearby reports. Snow started in the Early Morning hours, Light to Moderate Snow lasted through the day, Temperatures were at or above freezing so roadways were wet and were not getting snow accumulations so travel was fairly smooth, highs only just made it into the upper 30s for the area, The Average high this time of year is near 60!



Photos and Experiences



Snow Filled Green Oak Trees, A fairly Rare Scene.

this snowy system was definitely unusually early, It's really not often you see that you see this much snow this early in October, Actually In all of my past, I could not ever remember a time when we had Snow while trees were mostly green I also asked my Dad the same question and he also said in the 20+ years of living here, he has not seen this much snow this early, This was a very interesting experience and will be a system to remember.

Another look and the snowy conditions with green foliage!



At My location, Light Snow started Very early in the morning at 4AM, with a temp of 30.F by 7AM the ground was White and covered with snow, after about 8AM heavier snow moved in and temps rose to 32.F, snow was piling up quickly, It was a wet heavy fluffy type of snow and tree branches started bending, But by the afternoon the temp rose to about 36.F and snow quickly melted off tree branches, but some snow stayed on the ground through the day! and likely through the night. as lows drop below freezing.



One last look at Snow with some Fall Color!



My Total Snow accumulation from this system was 2.75 inches, This puts us at 3.25" of snow for the entire month so far including Saturdays Snow!, last year we had a Trace for the month of Oct, What is also Interesting is, Last year we didn't even have our 1st flakes until the 26th Of October, and it wasn't even a sticking snowfall While this year our first 2 snowfalls have been measurable ones!

1 comment:

Josh Herman said...

Excellent report D. Over here we only saw flakes mixed into the rain.