MINNEAPOLIS — The saying we've all heard a million times, April showers bring May flowers, but if that's true, what does April snow bring?
Ticked off Minnesotans, that's what, who thought they could finally trade-in their coats for shorts, their snow blowers for lawn mowers, and finally get some sun.
Then mother nature said, not so fast.
This latest snow event had us at KARE-11 wondering, how often does it snow in April? And how much?
"On average we get two and a half inches of snow in April,” KARE-11 Meteorologist Laura Betker says.
That's nearly five times higher than the average for October, a month many Minnesotans expect to see a little snow.
Over the last 100 years, it snowed in April 56 times. That’s a lot compared to October, a month that has only seen an inch or more of snow 14 times over the same time-period.
"April snow is not a rarity, but it's not always this big of a storm," Betker says.
The record was set in April of last year when 26.1 inches of snow fell in Minnesota.
Here we are a year later, a 2nd year in a row dealing with another April snow storm.
The last time it snowed six or more inches in back-to-back Aprils was in 1983 and 1984.
Those two Aprils rank as the 2nd and 10th snowiest, respectively.
When you look at the top ten snowiest Aprils in Minnesota history an interesting trend emerges.
"Three of the top four happened post 2000," Betker explains. “It certainly is becoming more common.”
That’s interesting when you consider Minnesota’s record books go back to the 1800’s.
That’s at least 200 years of data and three of the top four snowiest Aprils all happened within the last 20 years.
Snowing in April is bad enough but imagine seeing snow in June.
That's right, according to state records, snow fell in Koochiching near the Canadian border on June 4th, 1935.
It also snowed in August back in 1949 in Duluth, according to state records.
That means July is the only month where snow has never fallen in the state of Minnesota.