Duluth with nearly 11 feet of snowfall in 2019 is getting the most attention, but Kenny Blumenfeld with the State Climatology Office says snowfall records were broken across the state in the year just ended — in communities like Marshall, Lamberton and Rochester — and even over to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Blumenfeld says this past decade, Minnesota winters have tended to be either very snowy or very warm. “There have been few years this decade where Duluth was in… and the whole state was in what we call a snow drought — maybe 50 to only 75 percent of the total normal seasonal or annual snowfall,” he says.
Blumenfeld says even though there’s been increased snowfall in many Minnesota locations, it generally melts faster than in the past: “Duluth for example, even though its snowfall statistics are going up…., it’s spending less time with six inches or a foot of snow on the ground, and more time with no snow on the ground, even though snowfall during the winter is increasing.” Blumenfeld says there’s more snow because there’s more moisture in the air from the oceans, due to warming global conditions.