By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

UPDATE: NOAA predicts the Red River Will Crest Again in Fargo-Moorhead in Late April here possibly again at records levels.

Just a week after the last major northern plains blizzard another significant snowfall occurred this weekend. Blizzard conditions were reported with up to 16 inches of snow in Nebraska (Cody).  Models had difficulty with the location of the heaviest snow bands and storm track.

Several inches of snow fell in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, southern Minnesota into southern Wisconsin and Monday into Illinois, Indiana, northern Ohio and Michigan. This included parts of the Red River Basin already in flood and with deep snowcover (click here to enlarge).

The northern plains has been hit hard this year. Fargo set a record for snowfall and precipitation for March, Bismarck also in North Dakota had record snowfall in December and the second snowiest March, the first year with with two monthly totals in the top ten enlarged here. 

Bismarck is on the northern edge of this storm. If they get more than 1.4 inches of snow from this (or some later) storm, they will set an all-time snow record. See the enlarged listing shown below here as of April 1 after the big blizzard. See all the watches and warnings here.

The National Weather Service said International Falls, with the reputation as the nation’s icebox, recorded 124.2 inches of snow this winter. That tops the old record of 116 inches set in 1995-1996. The nearly 9-inch dump from this week’s snowstorm pushed International Falls over the edge. The Minnesota-Ontario border area has been pummeled with snowstorms this winter.

And from KOMO News Weary Spokane residents who are sick of snow can at least now be consoled by the fact that they were a part of history.

A snow storm on Sunday has made this the snowiest winter on record in Spokane. The National Weather Service said 93.6 inches of snow has been recorded at Spokane International Airport this winter, breaking the record set in 1949-50 by a tenth of an inch. It took snowfall of 3.9 inches of Sunday, a record for the date, to break the all-time record. This is the second-consecutive heavy winter in Spokane. Last year, more than 92 inches of snow fell on the Lilac City, third most since records started in 1893.

Spokane’s Top 5 Snow Years:
RANK WINTER SNOW TOTAL
1 2008-2009 93.6
2 1949-1950 93.5
3 2007-2008 92.6
4 1974-1975 89.0
5 1992-1993 87.3

Spokane is also mired in unseasonable cold. Normal high temperatures at the of March are in the low 50s, but this month has seen highs in the 30s and 40s.

See here how an amazing 358 lowest temperature records and 409 snowfall records were broken for the week ending Apr 2, 2009.