Michael Ayres wasn’t surprised by the weekend blizzard walloping Rochester with 14 inches of snow by Sunday morning.
“Usual Minnesota,” said Ayres, 55, as he shoveled his walkway. “No surprises in March to have a big snow dump, and it’s fine.”
And [it] was very fortuitous. We had a sleepover at our house last night, so I had extra help this morning.”
The blizzard conditions made the city quiet except for the sound of a stray snow blower and the rush of gusting winds. As the snow started to peter out midday, residents began emerging from their homes.
Alton Ayres, 13, and his friends Armando Velasquez, 13, and Joseph Teng, 13, got roped into shoveling Sunday morning after a night of movies and games. But they’re hoping they can have fun later — maybe go sledding.
Southeast Minnesota was hit particularly hard by the weekend snowstorm. Rochester and nearby cities like Mankato suspended public transportation operations Sunday and urged residents to stay at home and off roadways if at all possible. Highways closed across the region, even down to Iowa.
But, that meant Rochester residents got creative, taking other modes of transportation Sunday.
Lonny Olson-Williams, 64, skied down a snow-covered sidewalk in his neighborhood, heading towards a bike path that weaves alongside the Zumbro River.
“I make a point of trying to enjoy the snow when it shows up,” Olson-Williams said. “Electricity is on. Water is running. It’s a good day.”
Further up the block, several neighbors ran snowblowers and shoveled, working together to clear paths. More snow was forecast to fall later on. But there was a consensus — everyone was happy the state was getting a good old-fashioned snowstorm after a few years of mild winters.
“The past three winters have been super just… bleh… ’wussy,’ I call it,” said Carrie Nelson, 54. “It's nice to actually see a decent snowfall.”
Around the corner, Adam Carlson, 44, was running his snowblower, clearing the sidewalk along his entire block. He said the same thing and also explained how he enjoys the fringe benefits of a weekend snow day.
“It’s just a nice way to kind of slow down,” Carlson said. “Nobody expects things to really move, you know. So it’s kind of a nice excuse to get the snow cleaned and just warm up, have a nice cup of coffee or tea and make a stew and chill out.”
St. Paul gets less snow than anticipated
Mark Dahl, 56, has his shoveling routine down so well he doesn’t even wear a coat knowing he’ll work up a sweat, especially with how heavy the late-season snow can be.
He still hacked away at the snow that was as tall as the top of his boot in layers, first using his snow thrower — which is like a small version of a snowblower — and then a shovel, to make the heart-attack snow more manageable.
He lives in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood, which like most of the rest of the Twin Cities, is under a snow emergency. That means cars needed moving by Sunday night, lest they end up trapped by snowdrifts from plowing, or towed. Even if they wanted to go anywhere, officials all over the state warned travel was dangerous.
“Most of the cars will be out,” Dahl said. “I don’t know, these people hardly ever move their car anyway, so they just go right around them and pin them in.”
Just a block over, Tyler Wied cleared his sidewalk, a rude awakening after flying back from the 95-degree Costa Rican sunshine.
He and his wife moved their flight up to get ahead of the more than 700 cancellations at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport during the blizzard.
“The flight coming from Costa Rica today was canceled, so we made the right decision to come back on Saturday,” he said Sunday.
A few houses down, Stella Dinzeo admitted it could have been worse, especially since the temperature wasn’t Arctic.
“It’s really heavy, but it’s not bad,” she said. “It’s refreshing and not as bad as I expected. I was prepared for, you know, Minnesota to blow up, according to the news. It sounded worse than what it is.”
Down the street, Gretchen and Jim Guenter took their dogs Jasper and Kayla for a walk, much to the dogs’ excitement. They’re medium-sized cattle dogs that beamed, with tails flying.
“Our younger dog, Jasper, he just gets the zoomies,” Gretchen said. “He just wants to go in every fresh piece of snow there is, up on every lawn, through every pile.”
After days of 50-degree weather the past few weeks, deep down, they knew Minnesota was in for another blast, though for the Twin Cities it was milder than the 18 to 24 inches originally predicted. But it was still enough to prompt St. Paul to cancel school Monday.
“It feels weird, but it is March and it is tournament season. So this is what we get every year, right?” Jim said.
