Wind, cold blast area

• Downtown Worthington

Worthington, 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 12. Kari Lucin/Daily Globe Downtown Worthington stayed relatively busy early Monday afternoon despite the blizzard warning that prompted many people to leave work early in an effort to beat the storm home.

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — The winds were relatively tranquil early Monday morning, and the temperature comfortable — but both changed quickly, as blizzard conditions prevailed by afternoon across southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa.

A number of schools opted to close Monday in advance of the forecasted nasty weather, and the prognosticators were right. The temperature in Worthington was 28 degrees at 11 a.m.; by 5 p.m., it was 6, with winds howling from the northwest at roughly 40 mph.

In Nobles County, snowplows were called off the roads at approximately 2:45 p.m., said Steve Schnieder, the county’s director of public works. He said the maintenance foreman typically makes the decisions to bring in the plows.

“Those decisions are based on reports from operators and visibility and results they get back from the plows in operation,” said Schnieder, explaining that plows can be called off if high winds result in lack of visibility and/or plowed snow being quickly blown back on roadways.

“We kind of monitor what other counties are doing around the area and around the state ... so we have some consistency,” Schnieder added.

By 2:30 p.m., the Minnesota Department of Transportation was advising “no unnecessary travel” in Cottonwood, Jackson, Nobles and Rock counties due to “difficult driving conditions, icy patches, slippery, strong winds, reduced visibility, drifting snow, snow and roadway (and) packed snow.” Shortly before 4 p.m., MnDOT was advising no travel.

A blizzard warning for counties in southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa was be in effect until 9 p.m. Monday, followed by a winter weather advisory in effect until 4 a.m. today. It’s possible that advisory may be changed to a wind chill advisory, as winds were expected to subside throughout the night but nevertheless create temperatures feeling like 20 to 25 degrees below zero.

“This type of system we define as a clipper,” said Shawn Leibl, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sioux Falls, S.D. “These are low pressure systems that dive out of Alberta. … We see a number of clippers through the winter season, and obviously some of them are stronger than others.”

Leibl said stronger systems such as the one that passed through the region Monday bring extreme temperature change along with gusting winds. Substantial snow accumulations aren’t typical of clippers, he added — and Monday’s system wasn’t an exception to this rule.

“Usually with a clipper you get a quick shot of one to three inches of snow,” Leibl said. “They’re not big snow producers, but on occasion they can produce pretty strong winds, and that’s what we got today.”

Weather conditions won’t affect plans to clear streets in the city of Worthington, Director of Public Works Jim Laffrenzen said late Monday afternoon.

“We just finished up (plowing) at 4:30 p.m., and visibility wasn’t really much of an issue,” Laffrenzen said. “We’ve got places like South Shore Drive … where it (snow) comes off the lake on the street.

“We’ll start (plowing) at 2 a.m. (today) and do the downtown parking lots and the downtown alleys,” he continued. “At 4, we’ll begin plowing the downtown snow.”

While that should make the streets of Worthington passable this morning, rural areas may well see another day or either late school starts or closings today. Round Lake-Brewster, Southwest Star Concept, Fulda, Okoboji, Immanuel Lutheran School in Lakefield, Jackson County Central, Murray County Central, Windom, Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, Sheldon Community Schools, Westbrook-Walnut Grove, Ellsworth, Adrian, Worthington Area Language Academy and Pipestone Area schools were all closed Monday. Worthington District 518 Schools were open and on time, but dismissed at 12:45 due to the weather.

Today’s weather will be chilly, with the high in Worthington expected to be about 5 degrees, Leibl said. Winds are expected to pick up during the day, though they’re not expected to be substantial enough for a wind chill advisory.

See www.dglobe.com for continuously updated weather-related announcements.

Tags: news, weather, schools, noblescounty, winter