Major snowstorm makes Christmas 2009 one to remember

If there was any fear that Christmas of ’09 wouldn’t be white, those fears were quickly dashed as Wednesday’s trickle of snow turned into a three-day, on-again, off-again, snowstorm that left plow trucks hard-pressed to keep up.

“We put in just about 40 hours plowing over three days,” said Jerry Sawatzke, public works director for Maple Lake. “The only day we didn’t plow was Sunday. It wouldn’t have been so bad but it would snow, we’d get everything cleaned up, then it would snow another three inches and we’d have to start all over again. By Saturday we were mostly hauling, trying to get the windrows off Birch and Division.”

By most estimates, an average of 13 inches of the white stuff coated the Maple Lake area over the storm that began here on the evening of December 23 and ended on December 26. Shoveling that never seemed to stop was reminiscent for many of the 1991 Halloween blizzard, and in many areas a single snowstorm has not dropped as many inches since that storm. This year’s Christmas snowstorm would likely have reached higher snow totals if not for temperatures in the high 30s on Christmas Day that caused considerable melting of snow.

The far-reaching system was timed perfectly to disrupt the holiday travel plans of many area travelers, beginning Dec. 23 and extending through Christmas Day.

Big snowstorms at Christmas are rare for Central Minnesota and the Twin Cities area. According to the National Weather Service, the snowiest Christmas Day in this part of Minnesota was 1945 with 9.6 inches, part of 11.3 inches that fell over the two days. The 3.4 inches of snow that fell on Christmas Day in 2007 was the most since 1950.

The National Weather Service was predicting more than 15 inches of snow in central and western Minnesota. It declared that travel on those days would be “life-threatening” and potentially “impossible” in parts of Minnesota, where drifts of 5-10 feet were predicted on rural roads.

According to the State Patrol, statewide on Christmas Eve in the period from 6 a.m.-2 p.m. alone, there were 74 property damage crashes, 11 personal injury crashes, and 265 vehicles off the road. Lt. Dan Anselment of the Wright County Sheriff’s Department reports that in Wright County, from Thursday a.m. through Sunday a.m., sheriff’s deputies responded to 32 vehicles in the ditch, most in the southeast part of the county, 31 accidents with only property damages and no injuries, and 8 injury accidents. “Things could have been much worse,” added Anselment. “The numbers would have been much higher if the snow had hit during a normal workday. The holiday meant traffic overall was down, leading to many fewer accidents.”

More information appears in this week’s issue of the Messenger.