How long does it take for all the snow to melt?
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- This winter was the third-snowiest winter of all time for the Twin Cities metro, with almost 90 inches that fell on the ground.
With warmer temperatures finally making an appearance this weekend, Eric from Ramsey asked: How long does it take for snow to melt?
WCCO News visited Pete Boulay, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources climatologist, at the Minnesota State Climatology Office in Eden Prairie to find out.
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Boulay says the strength of the sun in April is comparable to September.
"It's all about the sun," Boulay said.
Other factors influence snowmelt, too.
"Wind is one of them. Sun, rain, and above-freezing temperatures," he said.
Snowpack varies by location.
"Around trees, it can warm up faster because the trees are warmer," he said.
Over at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the snow usually melts by March 31. The earliest it was gone was March 1, and the latest was May 5.
"May snowstorms, they don't last long at all. They're usually gone the next day," he said.
Homes and driveways facing south get plenty of sun and will melt the fastest. That's not typically the case for those facing north.
"You're still moving snow off that driveway," he said.
Does snow typically melt from above or below?
"It depends on the time of year," Boulay said. "But deep snowpack, it melts from the top."
Strong sun can evaporate snow into the air. But is air temperature or ground temperature more important when melting snow?
"Air temperature is probably more important because you need to have that well above freezing to really get it to work," he said. "And what really helps is you have rain falling on the snowpack."
Anyone who has recently visited the Target store in Eden Prairie is familiar with the enormous mountain of snow in the parking lot, affectionately known as "Mount Target," or "Mount Eden Prairie." So when will it likely melt? May? June? July? August?
"It's hard to say," Boulay said. "After a while, you look at those and it seems like it's more dirt than snow."
The darker the snow, the faster the melt.
"You can see where there's been leaves, they start melting little holes in the ice, so obviously a leaf heats up faster than snow, so all this little dirt particles kind of help melt it faster, too," he said.
Despite being a little behind in melting this year, don't forget about 2018, when a thunder blizzard mid April left snow on the ground until April 21.
