Created: 03/31/2009 11:02 AM KSTP.com | Print Story By: Dave Dahl

Now that spring is here it's probably time to look back at just how bad our winter really was!

Let's go back to the beginning.  December started out cold and it never really recovered.  The warmest was only 41 degrees on the 26th of the month, while the coldest was 13 degrees below zero on the 22nd.  We ended up over 5 degrees below normal for the month.  Our snowfall for the month exceeded the average by over 7 inches with a total of 17.4 inches for the month. 

January started out where December left off.  The high temperature of 30 on the 1st of the month wasn't topped until the last day of the month when we hit 46 degrees.  The coldest stretch of the winter was in the middle of the month when the temperature stayed below zero for over 80 hours straight!  The coldest high temperature was only 6 degrees below zero on the 15th of the month with the next morning turning out to be the coldest of the winter when the thermometer dropped to 22 degrees below zero.  The month ended up being nearly 5 degrees below normal.  Our snowfall total for January was only 8.4 inches, which is nearly 5 inches below average. 

February wasn't that great either.  The warmest temperature for the month was 47 degrees, which actually occurred twice on the 9th and 10th.  The coldest however was 5 degrees below zero on the 4th of the month.  Thanks to the warm spell early in the month, we ended up just shy of 1 degree above normal.  Our snowfall for the month was a little above average at 10.9 inches with the heaviest snowfall of the winter landing on the 26th when 6 inches fell.

We weren't the only ones in the state with a harsh winter.  Take St. Cloud for example.  They ended up being about 3 degrees below normal for the winter with their coldest temperature of 36 degrees below zero coming on the 16th of January.  Snowfall was much heavier in the North as well, with the season totals reaching 50 to over 100 inches from around the St. Cloud area northward.

Even though April is here we'll probably still see a little more snow, but with temperatures this time of the year topping 50 nearly every day you can bet the snow won't stick around very long.

Have a great day!

Meteorologist Dave Dahl