The final totals, tallies, and thingamajigs are in from the Feb 20-21 winter storm. Here’s a bunch of stuff for you to munch on.

An area of low pressure moved from the southern Rockies into the upper Midwest on Sunday. This system pulled up copious amounts of moisture from the south, and also warmer air aloft and at the surface. The low tracked across Iowa, putting most of Iowa in the rain zone, northern Iowa/southwestern Wisconsin in the freezing precip zone, and much of southern Minnesota in the snow zone. While northern Iowa & southwestern Wisconsin saw mostly freezing drizzle/sleet/rain fall, southern Minnesota saw snow until the midday hours on Sunday, when we lost ice crystals in clouds, leading to the formation of freezing drizzle and sleet. This persisted well into the evening hours before transitioning over to light snow again. By this time, the heaviest band of snow had set up just north of our viewing area, roughly from the Twin Cities west to Aberdeen, SD and east to Green Bay, WI. There, convectice snow led to snowfall rates in excess of 1-2″ per hour. Winds also increased, gusting over 30mph locally, which caused considerable blowing drifting, and, at times, near white-out conditions.

As the main low passed on Sunday night, a lingering wave kept light freezing drizzle and eventually snow falling on Monday, as colder air wrapped in. This allowed most of the area to pick up another 1-3″ of snow…and a crusty glazing of ice.

The following is courtesy of the National Weather Service in La Crosse.

Final totals from the NWS La Crosse warning area – includes sleet, freezing rain, and snow reports. (Note: takes some time to load…not recommended for slow computers…)

Map of snowfall across Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin. Note the heaviest fell (bright blues/purples) over central Minnesota into central Wisconsin. These locations saw snowfall rates, at times, in excess of 2″ and hour – they also had some good thundersnow (which produces higher snowfall rates per hour).

 With temperatures close to freezing in our neck of the woods, we saw snow, freezing rain, sleet, more snow, more freezing drizzle, and then more snow. For northern Iowa, most of this came in the form of freezing rain and drizzle, lending to ice accumulations.

Courtesy of the National Weather Service - La Crosse

Courtesy of the National Weather Service - La Crosse

 The freezing drizzle and light snow lingered on Monday, and as colder air wrapped into a lingering wave passing through, our light snow turned extra fluffy. Here are 24-hour reported snowfall totals (just from Monday morning to Tuesday morning – not entire storm):

And here are reported snowfall totals from Sunday AM – Monday AM

And finally, final totals from the NWS Chanhassen office – some spots inched close to two feet of snow!

Posted under snowfall amounts, winter, winter weather