Crippling snowstorm shuts down Western Wisconsin. Near blizzard condtions at times with major accumulations and huge snow drifts

My garden with tractor over half covered by gigantic drift Dec 12th

A major snowstorm which locals are calling the blizzard of 2010 hit region this weekend and brought very high snowfall totals over 20 inches in parts of the area . Strong winds caused significant blowing and drifting snow with near white out conditions at times. The storm forced the closure of entire road networks in several counties in the local area and literally brought Western Wisconsin to a complete standstill. Minnesota was also hit hard in the same ways, many local and main roads were closed, even the modern day city of Minneapolis was brought to a halt as air and bus travel was suspended. Conditions were even worse west of the low pressure center where Blizzard conditions were seen winds gusted as high as 60MPH in parts of Iowa. Blizzard Warnings covered much of Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Southern & Eastern Wisconsin. Winter storm warnings covered the rest of the state of Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan.

Front of the house showing bushes barely above the snow Dec 12th


The statement "The calm before the storm" really applied to this storm, At my place Friday it was sunny with calm winds, even as nightfall rolled in skies were clear. It wasn't until late Friday evening that light snow started to fall . Saturday was a complete different story, by wake up time Saturday morning very heavy snow was falling and 7 inches of snow has already accumulated, over and inch per hour snowfall rates were falling in a huge band that was covering most of the area. In the afternoon winds began to increase over 30MPH at times, 35MPH was the highest on my station. This caused sigificant blowing and drifting, at times it was near white out conditions. When I looked out in the yard, I could barely see the barn across the from the house!

Significant snow and blowing snow Dec 11th

By 1 pm the worst conditions were hitting, business around Clayton began to close. I was supposed to work Saturday but I got a call that the restaurant where I work was closing due to heavy snow. by 2pm roads quickly became impassible or very difficult to travel on. Our street and driveway was impassible and I was snowed in, even main street in Clayton was blocked. Around that time I got the word from my friend that Barron County had closed it's entire road network, Polk County soon followed with the closings of all roads by 5, U.S highways 8 and 63 which are well travel highways were also closed. Things were not any better through the evening, by 7PM local news stations were saying Interstate-94 a major east-west interstate in St Croix and Dunn counties had to close because of significant drifts over the highway and the Wisconsin Department of travel was urging people to stay off all Wisconsin highways. To make madders worse very cold arctic air funneled behind the storm making for wind chills under -20.F. adding to already very difficult situations. A -22.F reading was the coldest on my station.

Significant front yard drift

This storm brought dumped major snowfall accumulations to the local area, 5.50 to as much as 23 inches were reported, At my location my stations old 3 year record of 8.50" was obliterated when I recorded a total in this storm of 19.0" Which is the most snow I can remember. This will likely be my stations highest total for a very long time because snowfalls of this magnitude are rare. Local news stations were saying this was the biggest snow in the area for almost 20 years back when we had the Halloween blizzard of 1991, It did not surpass the Halloween storm, but accumulations did rival that historic storm!

Me standing next to a drift by the Garage

This storm made very large drifts, most were over waist high on me which is at least 4 feet tall, It was tall enough to cover cars to the top of their windows! In the front yard drift photo above this one, the drift covers more then half of the small tree which is taller then I am! These were by far the largest drifts I've ever seen! Even my dad said they were the largest

My dog clearing the "mountain" of snow Dec 12

When I let my dog outside Sunday Morning, he didn't know what to think when he say walls of snow everywhere, it looked like a new world to him and these drifts made even getting to my snow gauge a difficult task!

Digging Out

Tractor with snow blower Dec 12th

It took a tractor with a large snow blower to dig us out, a plow was not strong enough. Normally my uncle plows us, but he said there was so much snow on his farm, there was no way he would be able to get to our house until Monday, luckily the neighbor plowed us out so we did not have to wait that long but it still too much of the afternoon to get through it.

Digging out and measuring wasn't easy, it took me more then an hour just to dig a path around our house and to our outbuildings. My old shovel broke in the process and we went out to buy a new one but they were all were sold out! We ended up borrowing one from my aunt. For measuring it was extremely difficult to get an accurate reading with all the drifts. I had to measure in 8 different place to get the reading, I originally had 16.50" but after some evaluation of the place of my snowboard considering the wind, I decided to take more measurements and out of the 8 measurements averaged 19.0" So this will be my official total.

Claytons Main street (Prentice Street) Late December 22nd

It took plow crews all of Sunday just to plow the roads. by late Sunday afternoon, they still did not have all the snow off the road on Prentice Street and they were running out of places to put it. It will likely take them until Monday before they can get all the snow plowed off!

Snowfall totals

Snowfall totals were in the double digits across southern parts of the area and were as high as 23 inches in Osceola, Snowdrifts of 3-4 feet were common here with drifts as high as 5 feet reported! There was a fairly sharp cut off in the highest accumulation, area with the least accumulation was Northern Burnett county where closer to 5" were common

Other blogs have coverage on this storm in there areas I've included a link to there reports

OSNW3-Oshkosh,WI

Dirks Forecasting Center-Rice Lake,WI