St. Cloud breaks seasonal snowfall record

ST. CLOUD – A perfect mix of cold air and heavy snowfall Friday propelled St. Cloud past a local snowfall record set nearly six decades ago.

As of Saturday morning, St. Cloud had received 88.2 inches of snow for the 2022-2023 season, surpassing the record of 87.9 inches set in 1964-1965, according to Bob Weisman, meteorology professor at St. Cloud State University.

The temperature peaked at about 37 degrees in St. Cloud on Friday, which tied the 1927 record for the coldest high on the date of April 21. That cold air allowed some of the wet precipitation to stick on the ground and not immediately melt as it often does in April.

"When the temperature is around freezing, it is tricky to figure out when it is going to stick," Weisman said.

St. Cloud joins Brainerd and Duluth, which also set new records for snow accumulation this year, despite the long-range forecast from last fall predicting a colder-than-average winter with drought conditions persisting or worsening. Instead, Minnesotans saw milder-than-average temperatures and a lot of wet weather.

Weisman said last fall he would have never predicted the amount of snowfall would surpass the 1964-1965 season.

"As a forecaster doing this more over 40 years, it usually doesn't pay off to forecast records. They are records for a reason," he said.

St. Cloud's average snowfall is about 48 inches, a level that the region surpassed in February this year.

"If it's going to be this close, we may as well break a record," Weisman said.

"We can now say we lived through the worst. Our future generation of grandchildren will get to hear, 'I needed to tunnel all the way out to my driveway' and 'The potholes were so big there were alligators living in them,'" he said. "That will annoy future generations for years."

The temperature is expected to finally climb out of the 40s by Tuesday, which should dampen the chances of any more impending snow. But never say never: The record for measurable late-season snowfall in St. Cloud is 3.2 inches set on May 19, 1971.