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Cold, strong winds follow Tuesday's snow

Steve Kohls, Brainerd Daily Dispatch

Lowell Elementary School student Aftyn Arnold, left, walked with her mom Amanda Arnold and sister Ella after Brainerd, Minn. schools were closed early Tuesday.

By MARY LYNN SMITH, Star Tribune

Last update: March 11, 2009 - 5:45 PM

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If you live in the Twin Cities, you can whine, but you can't brag.

Bragging rights belong to those in northwestern Minnesota and across the border into Fargo, N.D., where towns were brought to a standstill Tuesday by a blizzard that brought gusts of 40 miles per hour and more than a foot of snow in some places.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation this morning said driving conditions are "very difficult" on Interstate Hwy. 94, which is closed from Fergus Falls, Minn., to Jamestown, N.D. Blizzard conditions have reduced visibility from 0 to 500 feet and travel is not advised. Similar conditions and warnings also apply to Hwy 210 in Ottertail County and Hwy. 200 in Norman County.

Otter Tail County authorities say one person died on a snow-covered road during the blizzard Tuesday. A van slid into a pickup south of Vergas. The pickup then rolled, killing the driver. No names have been released.

Here in the Twin Cities, all you can whine about is Tuesday's dreary mix of rain, sleet and snow, which added to March's meltdown of winter slop.

The heaviest snowfall was reported in Red Lake Falls with 13.5 inches, Bemidji with 12 inches and Millerville in Douglas County with10.5 inches.

Alexandria had 8 inches, Sauk Centre 6 inches, St. Cloud, Glenwood, Madison and Atwater had 4 inches, St. Joseph, Annandale, Sauk Rapids, Olivia and Glenwood had 3 inches and Minneapolis, North St. Paul, Faribault, Owatonna, Mankato and Plymouth all had 1 inch, the National Weather Service said this morning.

At 5:30 a.m. in the Twin Cities, the temperature had dropped to 0. For the rest of the day, watch for blowing snow between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. with partly sunny skies and a high near 9 degrees. Wind chills will be as low as minus 23 degrees.

Tonight should be mostly clear with a low of around minus 6 degrees with windchills as low as minus 13 degrees.

Thursday will be sunny and warmer -- with a high near 21 degrees.

Monday snow seemed to have little impact on driving conditions on Twin Cities highways this morning. At 6:45 a.m., traffic was mostly flowing smoothly, and no accidents had been reported.

A storied March blizzard just wasn't in the cards for the metro area this week.

But Lew Wurdeman, of Farmington, has his fingers crossed that it still could happen before March melts into April.

"Frankly, I like bad weather," Wurdeman said. "March usually gives us our biggest snows," he said. "I wouldn't mind if we got 2 feet."

But then again, any precipitation would be nice to make up for the five-year drought that killed 90 percent of the trees on his Christmas tree farm. And then there's the remains of what used to be his walleye pond.

"It's now a 5-acre hole," Wurdeman said.

That's why Wurdeman was looking longingly to the north. Red River Valley residents are digging out from Tuesday's storm, which created white-out conditions and closed Interstate 94 and Hwy. 10 near Moorhead. More than 100 school districts shut down Tuesday as heavy snow was whipped up by wind gusts of 40 miles per hour in places such as Alexandria, Detroit Lakes, Moorhead, Thief River Falls and Morris.

People there were urged to stay off the roads and stay home, said Kit Metcalf, shift supervisor for the Red River Regional Dispatch Center. Many businesses closed for the day and others shut down early, she said.

But for the area's hearty residents, the storm was merely a matter of fact for this time of year. "It was inconvenient, but not horrible," Metcalf said.

The storm prompted the National Weather Service to activate its ongoing online survey to determine how citizens reponded to the winter weather and blizzard warnings. The survey will be active through Friday at http://studentweb.stcloudstate.edu/tama0502/poststormsurvey.html

Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788 The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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