Twin Cities residents awoke Friday to see they were spared the 2 feet of snow or more that fellow Minnesotans received, but now the state's urban hub is bracing for temperatures about to tumble into negative territory.
The Duluth area was blanketed Thursday with the deepest snowfall amounts, according to the National Weather Service, with North Shore towns climbing highest on winter's measuring stick.
The Weather Service tallied nine locales along or near the North Shore reporting 2 feet or more of snow: 28.2 inches about 7 miles northwest of Two Harbors was at the top of the snow heap, followed closely by Beaver Bay at 28 inches.
The Duluth and Hermantown areas grabbed the 2-foot ring, as did Chisholm on the Iron Range to the northwest.
In Duluth and surrounding areas by 4 p.m. Friday, about 300 outages affected 4,300 Minnesota Power customers. Lake Country Power was working to restore more than 500 outages affecting 8,300 in the region. Both utilities warned that it could be multiple days before power is restored.
"This is the worst winter storm we have seen on our system," said Minnesota Power executive Josh Goutermont during a news conference Friday. "If it was dry snow, we wouldn't be talking about it taking lines down."
The utility said it hopes to have power restored by Monday morning and has called in mutual aid, doubling its existing ranks. At the peak of the storm, 20,000 customers were without power, with Cloquet south to Hinckley and Nisswa up to Walker bearing the brunt.
Heath Johnson, who lives in Blackhoof Township about 30 miles south of Duluth, has been without power for more than 36 hours and has dealt with several downed trees on his driveway and a temperature of 40 degrees in his house. He recently drove to Minnesota from Florida after spending three weeks clearing trees from his property there following Hurricane Ian.
