Minnesotans Still Feeling Effects Of Record Winter
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The winter of 2013-14 has seemed to be never ending and many Minnesotans are at their breaking point.
"It's been a long one," University of Minnesota dentistry student Nate Vanlaecken said.
Vanlaecken is sick and tired of looking out at his neighbor's lawns and seeing nothing but grass while his is piled with snow.
Vanlaecken's home has no southern exposure, so a shovel will have to do the work of the sun.
He and his wife have been busy scooping snow off the yard and spreading it onto the boulevard to help the melting process.
"You'd see kinda glimpses of good weather and it'd seem like the snow would finally melt, and just when the roads got good...it would dump on us again," Vanlaecken said.
Call it the winter that wouldn't seem to quit.
No sooner did one snowstorm pass that another seemed to come along, and in between the snow fall was the brutal cold snaps.
It was way back on Dec. 4, 2013 when Minnesotans last saw the grass. That's the day the season's first four-inch snow covered up anything that resembled vegetation.
That was followed by more sustained snows and bitter cold.
"I'm hitting frost. It's solid about an inch and a half down," assistant state climatologist Pete Boulay said.
With a ruler in his hand, Boulay probed the lawn outside his office and proclaimed a trace of snow remains.
Boulay said this winter's been one for the record books.
"Right around the tenth coldest winter we have on record, and that goes back to the 1870s," Boulay said.
Carpenters, contractors and builders are just now making up for lost time. Winter's cold and snow stalled or delayed a number of building projects.
Still, it will be several weeks before deep frost is out of the ground and foundations can be dug.
"What, it was just about 60 yesterday? And now we've got snow expected again," Vanlaecken said.
Despite the glorious weekend where temperatures hit the low '60s, temperatures will drop once again this week. And if we need a reminder, the ground was still covered with snow on April 22 in 2013.