A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
No parking in a snowbank. The day after 5 inches of snow fell, city crews were still cleaning up the piles plowed to the side of Broadway Avenue by the Common Ground coffee shop in the early hours Wednesday. With a break in the snow expected next week, city crews plan to continue cleaning up the excess snow piles.
Julie Haverkamp, owner of Wood City Lights and Hardware, shovels the sidewalk in front of the store (again) on Cloquet Avenue Tuesday afternoon. It's been a marathon of shoveling this month, she said.
"Extreme" would be the proper term for the 2019 side of winter so far. More than 20 inches of snow in the first two weeks of February came on the heels of a polar plunge of minus-20s temperatures at the end of January.
Meteorologist William Leatham at the National Weather Service in Duluth said the total snowfall there, 26.5 inches, is a record for the first two weeks of February. The former mark was 24.6 inches in 1939.
Snow totals across Carlton County vary, but mirror the official measurements taken in Duluth.
"I don't know if 'lucky' would be the right term, but we've been hit by a series of storm tracks," Leatham said.
The snowfall recorded in Duluth so far this month is more than half of the normal snowfall for all of December, January and February, Leatham said. Those months normally bring just under 50 inches of snow.
The latest snowfall on Tuesday brought nearly five more inches to the region. While homeowners wonder where to put all the snow, city crews in Cloquet keep plugging along.
"It's part of the job," said Tim Johnson, assistant public works director. He said crews are working a lot of overtime and keeping the main streets clear. The goal is to plow curb to curb, he said, but some side streets tend to narrow. With a break in the snow expected next week, crews will work to shore up all the streets, Johnson said, which will include removing snow that hinders sightlines. He urged patience and appreciation for the efforts from his staff. "It's a lot of work," he said.
The nearly 5 inches of snow recorded across the county Tuesday into Wednesday was added to more than a foot that fell last week. Some scattered flurries were expected on Valentine's Day and into today, with clearing skies and some sun expected for next week.
The average amount of snowfall in Cloquet for February is 11.2 inches. The record monthly total is 29.2 inches, reached in 2001. Another few inches of snowfall the rest of the month could challenge that mark.
Total snowfall for the winter is about half a foot above normal. And while we've passed the meteorological halfway point of the winter season, we still have March, which averages 10 inches of snow in Cloquet, but is known for its wild storms. The March record for snowfall in Cloquet is 40 inches, set in 1965.
Keep those shovels handy.
