System report. Drizzle turning to snow-First accumulation of snow for some areas. Also 1st Thanksgiving cactus bloom on houseplant.

Snow falling on West Downtown Rochester November 19th 2011

Many people seen their first snowfall accumulation of the season with the resent system that passed through the Upper Midwest. What started off as drizzle with temperatures in the mid 30s on the warm side of the system here in Rochester eventually started to turn to big snowlakes seen above around 3pm yesterday. After this it went from snow to sleet for at least an hour before temperatures finally dropped enough to allow for snow to fall the rest of the system. After getting 0.06" of drizzle, temperatures dropping from the low 30s to low 20s by morning and the snow that fell stuck through the morning so far, but it is easy to tell just one sunny afternoon will melt it away completely. This system was not a huge deal for Southeastern Minnesota as mainly less then half an inch of snow fell at most areas accept the far north, where an inch appears likely to have fallen. This system was however a much better deal North in Central Minnesota and Western Wisconsin which was on the cold side of the system. a widespread area of 1-3 inches fell  from Central Minnesota over to my hometowns area of Western Wisconsin. But some very high totals included 12 inches of snow reported in Hickley,MN

Coating of snow early Sunday morning.

It snowed a quarter inch here in Rochester, which was just enough to coat the ground, and be consider the first "real" accumulation of snow, we are still waiting receive our 1st inch! With the 0.06" of drizzle and snow water melted down it was exactly 0.10" of precip, which is just a slight help to the moderate drought that we are under.

Snow totals include
Near Cannon Falls 1.30"
Lake City 0.40"
Oronoco 0.30"
West Downtown Rochester 0.25"
Rochester Airport 0.20"
Austin Trace.

 Red Thanksgiving Cactus in bloom November 20th 2011

The 1st flower on my thanksgiving cactus opened on this cold snowy morning. Just in time for the week of Thanksgiving! This is a 2 year old transplants of 3 different colors in one pot. There is white pink and red all in one, the other colors in here have several smaller buds waiting to open. My other plant is also still in the developing stage and has at least 60 buds. I estimate it will bloom sometime around the 1st week of December!