Winter Storm — South Clearwater, Minnesota

2019-02-06 to 2019-02-07 · South Clearwater, Minnesota

Wider weather episode

From Wednesday, February 6th to Thursday, February 7th, the main surface low passed from the Southern Plains up to the Great Lakes. However, there was plenty of forcing to create areas of heavy snow over the Northern Plains as well. The snow fell in three distinct periods, but the heaviest snow fell on Wednesday in a narrow band. This band may only have been 10 miles wide, but within this band, from 6 to 10 inches of snow occurred. This narrow band fell from Litchville to just north of West Fargo in North Dakota, then from Georgetown to Ada to Fosston to the Lower Red Lake in Minnesota. Combined with the other two periods of snow, most areas picked up a total of 4 to 12 inches of snow. Generally, wind speeds slowly increased on the Wednesday, with most stations reporting sustained 20 to 25 mph winds by the very early morning hours of Thursday in the Red River Valley. The strongest winds east of the Red River Valley occurred during the day on Thursday. Many schools closed and travel was very difficult, especially in open country.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 796673. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.