Power Outage in Crosslake, MN

A powerful, long duration winter storm brought widespread snowfall amounts of 8 to 24 inches across parts of northeast Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin, with areas around Lake Superior receiving up to 30 inches of snow. A wintry mixture of sleet, freezing rain and snow began Tuesday (December 13th) afternoon and evening, spreading northeast overnight Tuesday night and into Wednesday (December 14th) morning. This first wave of precipitation brought a widespread 6 to 12 inches of snow. We had a break in the snowfall during the day on Wednesday, but it started up again Wednesday night and continued into Thursday (December 15th), bringing another 8-20 inches of snow. This second wave of precipitation was nearly all snow, enhanced by the main upper level low pressure system as it moved close to the area. Lighter snow lingered into Friday and Saturday, December 16th and 17th. A low pressure system developed over eastern Colorado early Tuesday, moved northeast to eastern Nebraska by Wednesday morning, then to east-central Minnesota by Thursday morning, lingering there through Friday before moving off to the northeast Friday night and Saturday. ||The storm resulted in a long period of poor road conditions, with strong winds causing blowing and drifting snow. There were also widespread power outages, with some people reporting no power for over two days!||Notable with this storm was how wet and heavy the snow was, with 3-day liquid equivalent values of 1 to 4 inches. The wet quality of this snow, unusual for winter storms in this area, heavily weighed down trees and power lines. The density of the snowpack also exacerbated the quality of snow to absorb the red end of the visible light spectrum, transmitting the blue end, which led to many folks observing a glacier blue color in holes and cracks in the snow as they cleared it. Because of this blue color, as well as the very wet quality of the snowfall, NWS Duluth has taken to referring to this snow as the Blue Blizzard of 2022.

December 13, 2022

Several rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms worked across the Northland on the 10th with the first round moving out of Canada during the early morning hours. These storms produced localized damaging winds shortly after sunrise with a few downed trees and powerlines reported. Another round moved out of the Northern Plains across north-central Minnesota during the mid-morning hours and produced some isolated damaging winds and hail to around the size of half dollars.

July 10, 2022

Thunderstorm Wind. An eighteen inch diameter tree blocked the road with a power pole snapped as well.

June 20, 2022

Thunderstorm Wind. A cluster of trees was down onto a power line on County Highway 11.

May 30, 2022

Thunderstorm Wind. Multiple trees were down and the power was out.

May 30, 2022