Twin Cities gets hit with season’s first legit snowfall, while Duluth tops 10″

The Twin Cities and other parts of the state woke up Wednesday to roads fully or partly caked in slush and snow, canceled schools or late starts and declared snow emergencies in the wake of the metro area’s first snowfall in earnest of the year.

A winter storm warning spanned from Mankato through the Twin Cities and north to Hinckley, Duluth and along the North Shore of Lake Superior, but “overall the worst is over,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Tyler Hasenstein said.

Snow totals were still coming in Wednesday, with the north side of the Twin Cities area generally seeing deeper amounts than the south metro.

The latest measurements in the north metro from the National Weather Service included 5.7 inches in St. Francis, 4.8 in Andover and 4.5 in Shoreview. To the south, Jordan barely topped 1 inch, while Apple Valley received 1.4.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport came in at 3.1 inches. St. Paul registered 2.4.

Elsewhere in the state, the weather service the Duluth airport led the way with 10.3 inches. More than 8 inches was reported in Moose Lake and 6.5 inches in Brainerd.

At a home west of Two Harbors in Alden Township late Wednesday morning, high winds and heavy snow contributed to a 69-year-old man being killed when a tree fell on him as he was operating a snowblower, according to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office.

At 6:45 a.m., the State Patrol was responding to a scores of wrecks and spinouts on Twin Cities highways, primarily in the north and east metro. And troopers have been busy, responding to more than 280 crashes, 333 spinouts that put drivers in ditches and 30 jackknifed semis from noon Tuesday through 6 a.m. Wednesday, Sgt. Jesse Grabow said.

Treacherous conditions led to a pileup involving up to a dozen semis on westbound I-94 just outside of Moorhead on Tuesday, and forced authorities to close the freeway for several hours. The freeway was back open Wednesday morning.

“Semis pulling empty trailers are having much difficulty on these slippery roads along w/the wind resulting in jackknifes & crashes that can block traffic,” Grabow posted on X.

Some flights at the Twin Cities airport were canceled or delayed as snow arrived with the Thanksgiving travel rush. The airport recorded five canceled flights, including three departures, and more than 150 inbound and outbound delays, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

As of noon Wednesday, roughly a third of arriving flights were landing within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company. About 89% of departing flights were leaving within 15 minutes of scheduled time, and about 75% were exactly on time.

More than 80 school districts with scheduled classes on the day before Thanksgiving called them off or opted to start late. Not in session Wednesday included Brainerd, Bemidji, Hill City, Morris, Nevis and Sauk Rapids-Rice. In the metro, Fridley and Minnehaha Academy gave students the day off while Westonka will open 2 hours late and Robbinsdale pivoted to an e-learning day.

As snowstorms go, this one shaped up to be fairly average, but because it was the first of the season and came just ahead of holiday weekend, “it got more messaging than if this had been mid-January,” Hasenstein said.

Snow came much earlier this year compared to 2024. Last year the first 1-inch snowfall didn’t come until Dec. 19.

Minnesota Star Tribune staff writer Bill Lukitsch contributed to this report.