How long will the snow stay?

There’s some huge snow piles out there. Wonder how long we’ll have snow on the ground this year???

It will really depend on how fast our warm up is. One thing for sure there isnt much frost so that will have an impact too. Ive got piles in my back yard that are nearly 5 feet deep from drifting. The ditch in front of my house is level with the road and that is about 6 feet deep. The snowbanks along the roads in town are higher than my hood on my truck.

lindyrig79 wrote:

There’s some huge snow piles out there. Wonder how long we’ll have snow on the ground this year???

This kinda falls under currant events….are you sure you’re allowed to talk about this? You should edit your post so it includes something about fishing.

Good question. I’d like one more trip to the cabin on the ice mid March, then it can go away!

Doubt much melted yesterday with the rain but my front yard settled about a foot. Could just see the ears of the christmas reindeer that are still buried out there. This morning could see head , neck, and some body.

Here in west central to SW MN we were just starting to see some dirt on hill tops in fields until last week.
There are tree lines with snow drifts up to 10’ tall. Now they are on the south side so the sun can hit them directly.

A week of warm sunny days will put a dent into the snow pack. The bigger drifts and piles will be here till May is my guess.

I did some work in harris Sunday and there is zero frost under the snow where I was. Once the snow melts it will green up fast.

With the snow expected here again tonight ( 4-6″ ) its going to take some real warm windy days to melt it all. Because of some of the rain and some melting along the way there are several ice layers mixed in. That will surely slow the melt down a little. I hope its a gradual melt this year. That fast Melt last year created lots of local flooding in this area and really messed up my opening day fishing. A slow gradual run off would be real helpful for the local lakes this year.

I think it will be gone by the second week of April. Just a guess at this point.

Little frost and fish are setup in spring patterns I think it will be quick this year.

Hopefully slow melt and not prodded by heavy rain. The potential for flooding is there.

The snow will go quick in the Southern half of the state. Just the quick .8″ of rain we received knocked a lot of the snow down immediately after getting ~15 inches. In the next 10 days there is not a single day where high temps aren’t above freezing either. The mud season where it isn’t Spring and isn’t Winter has arrived here locally.

The NOAA flooding probability indicators for the river here are average. The snow pack itself doesn’t hold as much water as many think. Big flood events here are tied to early rains before the frost is out more often than not.

buckybadger wrote:

The snow will go quick in the Southern half of the state. Just the quick .8″ of rain we received knocked a lot of the snow down immediately after getting ~15 inches. In the next 10 days there is not a single day where high temps aren’t above freezing either. The mud season where it isn’t Spring and isn’t Winter has arrived here locally.

The NOAA flooding probability indicators for the river here are average. The snow pack itself doesn’t hold as much water as many think. Big flood events here are tied to early rains before the frost is out more often than not.

Will be nice if you are right. I dont sling sandbags as well as I used too.

If you can believe it, half the state is still in moderate drought status, and more than half is considered abnormally dry, with one small pocket of severe drought in SW MN.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?MN

That is because the snow hasnt melted yet, but that will change once its melted.

CaptainMusky wrote:

That is because the snow hasnt melted yet, but that will change once its melted.

I am not sure that snow melt alone will be enough to lift the entire state out of drought. I think at least normal rainfall this “spring” will be needed as well.

CaptainMusky wrote:

That is because the snow hasnt melted yet, but that will change once its melted.

Spring melts can has so many different effects depending on many factors. How much there is to melt, how fast it melts, if the frost is out of the ground when it melts, Just to name a few. Last year around Here the snow melted fast and for the most part the ground was still mostly frozen. This lead to a fair amount of flooding. Even so by late summer the lakes were still well below normal levels.

gimruis wrote:

I am not sure that snow melt alone will be enough to lift the entire state out of drought. I think at least normal rainfall this “spring” will be needed as well.

I dont think it will either. There isnt much moisture in it. Most of the moisture is the 1″ of rain we got that is now frozen into the snow.

Dave maze wrote:

I did some work in harris Sunday and there is zero frost under the snow where I was. Once the snow melts it will green up fast.

North branch is identical. We leveled a area to build a shed at a buddies and the frost was non existent. To much snow insulated the ground before the deeper freeze

They said on the news this morning that this is the second most precipitation we have gotten in Dec/Jan/Feb since the late 1800’s. There is like 6 plus inches of moisture in the snow pack.

JEREMY wrote:

They said on the news this morning that this is the second most precipitation we have gotten in Dec/Jan/Feb since the late 1800’s. There is like 6 plus inches of moisture in the snow pack.

^The period from June – October brought a 11.52″ rainfall deficit to the Twin Cities. The flooding risk will be tied to timing of rains, not the quantity of snow to melt. We can absorb the snowpack and then some…but the frost has to be gone.

A big multi-day rain event in the next few weeks could change a lot, but outside of that I’m betting on a fairly normal Spring on the river here with moderately high water but not major flooding. Every location is different though, and nobody can predict the weather beyond a few days at best.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/drought-2022.html#:~:text=The%20period%20from%20June%20through,%22normal%22%20for%20the%20time.

I know we were way behind on rain. Just saying people were saying there aint much moisture in the snow pack.

gimruis wrote:

If you can believe it, half the state is still in moderate drought status, and more than half is considered abnormally dry, with one small pocket of severe drought in SW MN.

Snow melt only contributes to ground water if there is little to no frost. With frost most of it is just run off.

rvvrrat wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gimruis wrote:</div>
If you can believe it, half the state is still in moderate drought status, and more than half is considered abnormally dry, with one small pocket of severe drought in SW MN.

Snow melt only contributes to ground water if there is little to no frost. With frost most of it is just run off.

Yes, but apparently there is minimal or zero frost in the ground. At least that’s what has been stated in this thread.

More snow tonight and again mid week. Very little, if any, melting on the 10-day forecast. I’m thinking we’ll have snow in the yard until mid-April at this point.

almost all ways till mid April in my neck of the woods, Walker, Mn

Got another 2+ inches of the heavy wet heart attack snow here overnight. The snow melts for a couple days, then we add it back.

And sounds like a “Much larger” system on its way for mid week and cooler temps will be the norm for much of March. This winter is wearing on me.

The only snow on the ground around here is where it has been piled. All the river ice has been swept downstream.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

And sounds like a “Much larger” system on its way for mid week and cooler temps will be the norm for much of March. This winter is wearing on me.

You dont say! Man, this is just dragging on and on and on. Im guessing we got another 6 inches here or dang close. My rain gauge is nearly full to the top. I had about 3 inches of ice in the bottom before the snow. It holds 12 inches. I read a graphic that St Cloud had 11 inches on the ground and I call BS on that. We have had including this snow (at my house) 26 inches in about a week.