Strange Minnesota winter continues
Strange Minnesota winter continues
12 February 2012
published by www.kare11.com
USA — MINNEAPOLIS — Buds on the trees and an overnight grass fire near Hugo and the wild, weird weather trend in Minnesota continues into February.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Lawn Ranger’s Todd Dilley.
He chalks this season up as one Minnesota’s weather anomalies. His Lawn Ranger snowplows have sat idle for most of the winter.
The greatest snowstorm we’ve had so far dropped a little over 4 inches back in December.
January was one of the driest and warmest on record and despite a cooler temperature here and there, February is on pace for more of the same.
A dry fall coupled with a dry winter and the National Weather Service’s U.S. Drought monitor shows most of Minnesota is in a moderate drought and the southwest part of the state is in a severe drought.
Dilley says you can make things easier on yourself and on your lawn come spring if you stay off of it now.
He figures he’ll be servicing plenty of people with damaged lawns because of a lack of snow.
As for all of the trees, bushes and other things that make up the lovely Minnesota landscape, water is definitely needed, but its timing is everything.
“What we’re a little worried about too is we come through this drought and no snow, then all of a sudden it will rain all spring and we won’t be able to do anything in the spring,” said Dilley. “But that’s the nature of our business, it’s weather related and there’s nothing in the world we can do about that.”
During an average winter Minnesota sees about 55 inches of snow, so far this winter, 14.9 inches have fallen.
