The temperature monitor in my Faribault, Minnesota, home registered the outdoor air temp at minus 14.8 degrees Fahrenheit at 7:45 a.m. today. (Yes, I know the time is wrong.) Temps, unfortunately, are correct.
MINNESOTANS AWAKENED to another brutally cold morning with windchills plunging more than 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit on Monday.
A screen shot of MarshallRadio.net’s weather-related closings list this morning. This shows only a portion of the closings listed for that area of southwestern Minnesota.
Across the state, hundreds of schools are closed and activities canceled.
KLGR radio in Redwood Falls listed these area roads as still closed this morning. Minnesota State Highway 19 in both directions between Marshall and Redwood Falls is closed due to white out conditions. My hometown of Vesta lies half-way between Marshall and Redwood Falls.
Some roadways, especially in the southwestern region of Minnsota, remain closed due to white conditions and snow drifts blocking traffic lanes.
A screen shot of the Minnesota Department of Transportation 511 website shows road closures and conditions in Minnesota at 8:45 a.m. today.
We’ve been advised to carry winter survival kits if we must travel, to watch for black ice and that exposed skin can freeze in five minutes.
Students in my community, like many through-out Minnesota, have another day off from classes due to the brutal weather conditions.
Stay home if you can. That’s my best advice.
I just wont go far 🙂 Stay warm my friend!
Good idea, Jackie. I expect the wind whips the snow pretty good on your end of town.
It’s country just a mile from our house….that was the place to witness the “Blizzard” 🙂
Yowzer! You all must be very hardy people to stay in such a cold climate year-round. It gets pretty cold and is always windy here in OK but (thank-goodness) we don’t get such bone-chilling weather. Could use some of the moisture though – we’re experiencing extreme drought.
Drought is not good either. Let’s see, could we ship boxcar loads of snow to Oklahoma?
I was thinking of your post yesterday as I started reading The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. The descriptions of death by hypothermia in this book were horrific. This kind of weather is nothing to mess around with. I’m so thankful that today we have multiple sources of weather information.
Nothing to mess around with is correct. I’ll have to check out that book you reference.
Another good book written about the same area is The Long Hard Winter of 1880 – 81 by Dan L. White. It references the book The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I have not thought of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter in a long time. Her book series is among my favorite, especially since I grew up about 20 miles from Walnut Grove.
I moved from MN to FL in 1972. Now I remember why! Don’t miss MN winters a bit. However, we are expecting a little bit of snow/sleet in the Atlanta area Tuesday night. Hang in there…spring will come – eventually.
Oh, Brad, you, like me, lived through many a long prairie winter. I can totally understand why you don’t miss Minnesota winters. I loved them as a child. Now, not so much.
You really are having a very severe winter. Perhaps Al Gore needs to come out and redefine his science of global warming. I do hope this big freeze doesn’t last for too much longer; it must be so difficult getting just to the supermarket xx
Uh, huh, global warming… I think some relief from the cold temps is coming later this week. Tomorrow morning windchills are supposed to be brutal again and already schools are canceling classes.
Getting to the grocery store or elsewhere is really no problem for me as I live in town and the streets are plowed. Now for people like my mom, who live in rural Minnesota, that can be more difficult. She lives 20 miles from the nearest grocery store and, the past two days, the major highway leading to a community with a grocery store, was closed. I worry more about medical emergencies for those living in rural Minnesota as, for example, the nearest hospital can often be 20 or more miles distant. On occasion during blizzards, snowplows need to plow roads open to get patients to hospitals. That’s what scares me.
Yup, definitely staying in all day today and maybe tomorrow! My daughter celebrated the fact that they actually cancelled classes at the U today for the first time this season.
I heard that classes at the U were cancelled. A wise decision, I think.
Glad you’re staying inside and staying warm.
I used to like Winter too, Audrey, but not this year. I have never froze as much
as I have this year. The wind blows through every little crack in these 100+ year
old houses! Last night our power was off from 5 PM – 8PM. I feel so sorry for the
men that have to go out in the raging blizzards and fix what ever is wrong. I still
don’t know how they even get out in the country. Winds were 60 miles an hour
at Redwood Falls yesterday and I am sure they were that powerful in Belview too.
Spring is ONLY 52 days away according to the weatherman on TV.
DeLores
Thanks for that report “from the field,” DeLores. Wow, I had no idea winds reached 60 mph in Redwood County. Incredible. I can just imagine the blinding snow and I wonder, too, how the linemen got out to get the power back on. How are the roads in the area today?
Roads are o.k. I think. Just have to be careful of slippery spots and drive accordingly.
DeLores
Thanks for the update, DeLores.
Do you know how widespread the power outage was on Sunday and the cause?
I am not sure but someone said it included Sacred Heart,.
I am so unimpressed by the craziness in Atlanta, Georgia today – why did they NOT close those schools?!!!
Yeah, I just read a story about that and saw a photo of highway gridlock, like seven lanes on each side jam-packed with traffic.
And kids sleeping in their school, gym!