Winter Storm — East Polk, Minnesota

2019-10-11 to 2019-10-12 · East Polk, Minnesota

Wider weather episode

By the early afternoon of Thursday, October 10th, surface low pressure was located near Wadena, Minnesota. A stationary boundary extended northward from the low, up toward Baudette, Minnesota. As a result, there were wide temperature differences across the area, with low 50s along the stationary boundary to the lower 30s from Devils Lake to Jamestown. Steady snow fell west of the Red River Valley, while rain or mixed precipitation fell along and east of the Red River Valley. As the low slowly moved toward north central Minnesota by Friday morning, winds turned to the northwest along and west of the Red River Valley, and temperatures dropped to around or below 32 degrees. East of the Red River Valley, winds stayed southwest with temperatures holding in the low to mid 30s. Therefore, snow became the predominant precipitation type for all areas except around the Lake of the Woods region, where it remained rain or mixed precipitation. For the rest of Friday into early Saturday, the low actually spun back westward, or back into northwest Minnesota. This kept steady snow over most of the area, but the least from the Lake of the Woods region to Bemidji to Wadena. As far as storm totals (covering from the 10th to the 12th), areas just west of the Red River Valley into the Devils Lake region had the most snow, up to 30 inches in spots. The Forman to Fargo to Grand Forks to Hallock corridor picked up 1 to 2 inches of rainfall before it turned to snow. Because of this initial rain, snow totals were lower, but this corridor still managed to get 4 to 24 inches of snow, with some mixed precipitation as well. This had huge impacts on the area, including tree damage, power outages, river flooding, and basement flooding.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 859615. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.