Blizzard — Watonwan, Minnesota

2025-12-18 · Watonwan, Minnesota

Event narrative

Light snow combined with strong 40 to 50 mph wind gusts caused blowing snow and whiteout conditions for multiple hours. The AWOS station located at St. James Municipal Airport recorded a 51 mph wind gust.

Wider weather episode

A strong winter storm system would provide rainfall in the early morning hours that would transition to snow behind an arctic front producing strong wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph. Given the wet road surfaces and rapidly falling temperatures, flash freezing concerns existed for areas across central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro. Across portions of south-central and southern Minnesota, strong winds caused falling snow to turn into blowing snow leading to blizzard conditions.

The strongest wind gusts from this event were:

Willmar at 60 mph (Kandiyohi)

Redwood Falls at 55 mph (Redwood)

Montevideo at 51 mph (Chippewa)

Olivia at 49 mph (Renville)

New Ulm at 49 mph (Brown)

Le Sueur at 45 mph (Le Sueur).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1307133. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.