Early Season Winter Storm Hits Minnesota — Are You Ready?

Well, here we are, right back in the middle of winter weather, as the first big winter storm of the season has the Land of 10,000 Lakes right in its crosshairs. Are you ready?

Much as I didn't want to, I spend much of this morning rearranging our garage for winter. The lawnmower and rakes are put away, and the snow blower and shovels have been brought out. I even made a special trip to Menards this morning to restock our snow shovel supply-- the last good ones we had finally fell apart during one of the wet, heavy snow storms of last spring. The snow blower-- while it's seen better days-- still powered right up after I filled up the gas tank and hit the start button.

I've got to say, having lived all of my life in either Wisconsin or Minnesota, I've never really minded winter storms. In fact, I usually always looked forward to a good snow storm-- as long as I'm not trying to travel anywhere, or have friends or relatives who are travelling. As a kid, it couldn't snow enough for me!  I loved everything about snow-- from using dad's snow blower to clear the driveway, to sledding down the hill near our house, I couldn't get enough of winter.

Now though, I find myself glad that the storm tracked has drifted north, apparently sparing us most of the heaviest snows this time. I can't say I'm upset we're not getting nearly of foot of wet, heavy snow dumped on us. If this had happened when I was a kid, though, I would have been terribly disappointed that we weren't getting hit with huge amount of snow. It doesn't bother me so much today, though. I'm guessing its because November 10th seems awfully early to be in full-on winter mode, if you ask me.  And because I know Mother Nature will no doubt have several storms that will dump plenty of snow on us here in southeast Minnesota this winter.

It reminds of huge snow storm of 2010-- where we DID get a lot of snow dumped on us. So much, in fact, that the roof collapsed on the Metrodome...