Winter Weather in Chippewa, Minnesota

Light snow combined with 40 to 50 mph wind gusts created a period of blowing snow across the county. The AWOS station located at Montevideo-Chippewa County Airport recorded a wind gust of 51 mph and visibility as low as a half mile due to blowing snow.

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).