Snow falls but little stays

By the Daily Times staff
Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:50 PM CDT

A spring snowstorm leaves its mark on a display of lawn mowers outside a downtown business Wednesday afternoon. Watertown was spared the brunt of the storm, with a relatively small accumulation of 2 inches of snow in the city. (JOHN HART/Daily Times)

The Watertown area was sparred the heavy, wet, white accumulations of snow Wednesday as a late winter, early spring storm dropped record amounts of snowfall elsewhere in the state.

Watertown received 2 inches of snow over Wednesday's storm according to the National Weather Service Station in Sullivan. Officials said the general amount was from 3-5 inches.

“These numbers could be a little misleading because the snow didn't begin accumulating for some time and a lot of the snow melted because the ground was warm and the snow had a high water content,” Darrin Hansing, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Station, said. “The actual snow that fell was right in the range that we were looking at of 5 to 8 inches in the area.”

Although much of the snow melted on impact in the Watertown area, other cities in southern Wisconsin had accumulations of almost 9 inches.

According to the National Weather Service Station the city of Wauwatosa reported 8.9 inches, Union Grove recorded 8 inches and Milwaukee had 7 inches.

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“Snowfall in April is not that unusual, but getting higher amounts in some of these areas is fairly uncommon,” Hansing said. “Milwaukee and Madison both broke their daily snowfall measures.” In Milwaukee, 7 inches of snow fell, breaking a record set in 1997 of 3.2 inches, while in Madison, 5.3 inches of snow fell, breaking the record of 3.8 inches, also set in 1997.

Hansing said the snow isn't expected to stick around very long with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees and 50 degrees early next week.

The snowfall in Watertown was not enough to bring out the snow removal trucks in the city. While the snow fell most of the day, sometimes blowing parallel to the street due to the strong winds, it melted upon contact with roadways. The few flakes that did manage to stay intact, caused slushy roads for most of the afternoon.

The storm ran out of steam in late afternoon and did not produce up to a foot of snow that was expected in southern Wisconsin.

Temperatures that hovered around the freezing mark accompanied by strong winds did create some travel problems for those venturing out into the countryside.

The Dodge County Sheriff's Department reported numerous vehicle runoffs, but no serious injuries were reported as drivers apparently forgot their winter driving skills.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Kevin Stapleton said this morning there was only one injury accident reported Wednesday. He also commended county motorists for their handling of the slick roads.

“From the briefing this morning,” he said, “it appears although driving conditions were poor, drivers followed good winter driving procedures and there was very little in the line of accidents - and this was after preparing for a major winter storm.”

Stapleton said the county experiences at least one injury accident almost every day, so Wednesday's total of one reported injury accident was surprising. “We were very lucky,” he said.

“We had a few places the winds caused the snow to accumulate and we had to scrape the roadways, but we mostly salted the trouble spots,” Dodge County Highway Commissioner Brian Field said. “We had to keep an eye on the radar and looked at what was happening, but it was less than predicted,” he said.

The snow and ice removal budget for the county is still in the black, but the county is hoping for a mild fall, Field said. The county's budget is set up from January to December, but the winter months this year took its toll on the budget, he said.

“This winter snow removal cost a lot of money,” the commissioner said. “We had a few big storms, but a lot of small events that we hand to send trucks out for salting and drifting. We had a lot of weekend storms and those cost more,” he added.

The department has plenty of salt and sand left for this spring and next fall, Field said.

“I think we are going to start removing the snow removal equipment from the trucks and believe the calendar,” Field said.

And the calendar says April, so the May flowers can not be far behind.

Hopefully, the cold temperatures last week and the snow this week will not hinder the spring foliage.

“Some of the flowers that were most exposed to the cold have likely died or will not produce flowers this year,” Dodge County Crops and Soils Agent Matt Hanson said. But if the flowers had not yet formed on tulip plants, the plant may form new leaves and produce a flower, he added. The cold and snow may have stressed the bulb so the flower will not be as robust as previous years. “But there still should be flowers. If not this year, next year,” he said.

“Most of the cold questions revolve around alfalfa,” Hanson said. “From the fields I have looked at there has been some damage to some of the stems,” the agent said. “The fields that were quick to come out of dormancy this spring were the most seriously damaged,” Hanson said. Plants that had 6 inches of regrowth before the cold probably will die off, he said. “But at this stage it will not have a detrimental affect on the plant itself,” he added. “The crown of the plant is underground and the soil temperatures are between 40 and 45 degrees. What it may do in some area fields is make the first crop harvest difficult in timing,” he added.

Some plants will mature faster than others in the same field, depending on the location crop and if there was protection during the cold spell.

“In most cases, frost on the fields may have set the crop back a few days, or a week or so, but in the grand scheme of things, if we have a nice long growing season as we hope, the crop will make up for it,” Hanson said.

The cold and snow do not hurt the buds on trees as much as it would damage leaves, Hanson said. More damage is done if the leaves had started to form.