"A little anticlimactic": Tourists disappointed to find Minnehaha Falls reduced to trickling
MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota's drought is once again taking a toll on one of the state's most recognizable landmarks.
Throughout the weekend many took to social media to show a dried-up Minnehaha Falls.
On Monday there was just a small trickle of water to greet visitors who came from around the country.
"I guess I expected a little more water because it does snow here and rain," said one California woman who said she traveled to Minnesota to specifically see the falls.
This is at least the second time this summer the falls have gone this dry, if not completely dry. In August, a climatologist said it only used to happen once a decade.
According to the latest drought monitor, a good portion of the state is abnormally dry with pockets of moderate drought, but there's also a concentrated portion of the metro that is in a severe drought.
The falls has attracted more than 850,000 visitors each year ever since the late 1880s.
"There's a little bit of a trickle and so it was a little disappointing to not see the falls that we saw pictures of," said Cheryl Parent, who was visiting from Michigan.
"We had heard so much about it and everything, and we're staying nearby so we wanted to come by and see it," said Michael Scott, who was visiting from Indiana. "It was a little anti-climactic, I guess."
Back on Aug. 5 when the falls were dry, the metro received just under an inch and a half of rain that weekend, which was enough to get the falls going again.
Visitors joked about opening the many hydrants upstream as a quicker way to get the falls running again, which happened in 1964 when Minnesota was experiencing a drought and President Lyndon B. Johnson came to visit. But as visitors said Monday, we don't rate as high as him.