Winter Storm — Goodhue, Minnesota

2012-12-09 · Goodhue, Minnesota

Event narrative

Snow developed across the county during the early morning of Sunday, December 9th. The snow became heavier toward morning, with heavier bands of snow between 8 am and 3 pm in the far northern part of the county. By the early evening, totals ranged from 8 to 14 inches in the far north, to around 4 inches in the south. A 21-year-old man was killed in a multi-vehicle accident near Red Wing Sunday afternoon due to the hazardous road conditions.

Wider weather episode

A slow moving storm dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Upper Midwest, making roads treacherous or impassable and leading to one fatal crash near Red Wing, Minnesota.

The storm began in the northern Rockies, and moved eastward across South Dakota the morning of Saturday, December 8th. An old frontal boundary that lied across the central Plains, lifted northward and developed into an inverted trough across the Mississippi River Valley that afternoon. This inverted trough and the merging of the storm system across South Dakota, provided the energy and moisture to cause a significant winter storm across the Upper Midwest.

The heaviest snowfall totals occurred along Highway 212 from near Montevideo in west-central Minnesota, eastward across the Twin Cities, and into portions of west-central Wisconsin. This storm had two periods of heavy snowfall. One of the heavier events occurred early Sunday morning after 2 am where several bands of light to moderate snow fell across the western suburbs of the Twin Cities, northward into the St. Cloud area. Locally 4 to 7 inches fell from near Buffalo, northward to Sauk Centre in a 6 hour period.

The second heavier snowfall event occurred during the mid morning/early afternoon time period where the center of the storm system moved from southwest Minnesota, to east-central Minnesota. Several areas of southwest and west-central Minnesota had snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour. The town of Sacred Heart had a 17 inch total by the late morning due to these heavier snow bands. Eventually the storm affected the Twin Cities area, and then went into west-central Wisconsin by the mid afternoon hours. Locally 12 to 16 inches fell across the central and northern part of the Twin Cities metro area. The heaviest snowfall report was near Lake Elmo with a snowfall total of 17 inches. This system officially dropped 10.6 inches of snow at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. This report at the airport was the heaviest snowfall since the blizzard on December 12, 2010 that caused the Metro dome roof to collapse.

Blizzard conditions, blowing and drifting snow made visibility so poor that the state Department of Transportation pulled snowplows off some highways in southwest and west Minnesota on Sunday afternoon. The Minnesota State Patrol reported more than 600 crashes by Monday morning, and at least 1,140 spin outs. One person was killed in a crash involving a semi near Red Wing and injuries were reported in 63 other accidents, the State Patrol said.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 415936. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.