By Lori Ehde
The past few mild winters are mere memories by now as area residents dig out from yet another storm system that moved through region over the weekend.
The storm, which meteorologists had predicted a week in advance, made its first appearance in Rock County Friday late afternoon.
By nightfall, snow accumulations totaled only an inch, and Saturday dawned quiet but gray.
With sure predictions of more to come, area residents planned evening events "weather permitting."
By about 4 p.m. Saturday, those predictions started coming true in the form of pouring rain, which eventually turned to snow.
When the winds came up around 7 p.m., flakes fell horizontally, causing near-zero visibility for motorists.
Saturday's accumulations came to about 3 inches.
Interstate 90 was closed that evening first from Mitchell to Chamberlain, S.D., and as the storm system moved eastward, all lanes were closed all the way to Blue Earth. In addition, all state and county highways in southwest Minnesota were also declared closed.
Sunday church services were cancelled, and area residents and highway workers spent most of the day digging out.
The sun shone brightly most of the day on Sunday, and when the winds died down, the Interstate opened after stranded vehicles were removed from ditches and shoulders.
Many area residents went to bed Sunday night thinking their hard shoveling efforts would allow them clear passage to work the next day, but, as if to add icing on the cake, Mother Nature delivered another healthy inch of fresh snow during the night.
For rural ditches that are already piled high with snow, it doesn't take much for remote township roads to plug, and area schools were forced to start two hours late Monday morning.
The weekend's storm brings the total snowfall this year in Rock County to more than 50 inches - about three times what the area receives in a normal winter.
Forecasters topped off their weekend reports with the happy news that spring is only a few weeks away. But they also warned that March is typically the snowiest month of the season.