The Spring Blizzard of 2018

It's being called a blizzard and a winter storm of "historic" proportions. I'm opting to acknowledge the season we're actually in (as hard as it may be to believe) and calling it the spring blizzard of 2018. . . . And, yes, it's still very much happening right now in the Twin Cities and across southern Minnesota.

I was out in it for a while this afternoon, giving a ride home to my friend Deandre and then stopping by to visit my friend Kathleen in the Seward neighborhood of south Minneapolis, where the photos accompanying this post where taken. (That's Kathleen's son, Joey, cleaning off his car before going to work.) I'm home safe now . . . where I intend to hunker down until Monday morning.

Following is what the Star Tribune's Miguel Otárola says about today's blizzard:

An April blizzard so potent that forecasters dubbed it “historic” slammed into southern Minnesota Saturday, dumping heavy snow and whipping it around on high winds.

“This is shaping up to be a historic storm,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said Saturday morning as it expanded its blizzard warning eastward into the entire metro area — an extremely rare warning for the urban area.

Snow emergencies were declared in St. Paul and many metro-area suburbs, prompting parking restrictions.

Most roads in the southwestern part of the state were closed, and travel was extremely difficult to impossible in other areas, including the Twin Cities. The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport halted all flights until at least 7 p.m. “due to a lack of visibility and the fast rate of snowfall,” it said in a tweet.

Snowfall was expected to intensify through Saturday and continue well into Sunday, likely setting records for April amounts, the Weather Service said. Visibility will continue to deteriorate.

– Miguel Otárola
Excerpted from "'Historic' Blizzard Hits Twin Cities"
Star Tribune
April 14, 2018

Related Off-site Links:
Blizzard Conditions Pummel Southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities – Minnesota Public Radio News (April 14, 2018).
Major Snow Totals Still on Track as the Brunt of the Storm Moves In – Joe Nelson (Bring Me the News, April 13, 2018).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Spring's Snowy Start
• Farewell Winter
• A New Day
• In Minneapolis, A Snowy February Friday
• A Snowy Spring Day
• Waiting in Repose for Spring's Awakening Kiss
• Dreaming of Spring