CHANHASSEN, Minn. — For those of you bummed by a brown Christmas, the National Weather Service says you can find the bright side of this warm, wet weather.
Tyler Hasenstein is a meteorologist with the NWS in Chanhassen. He has been fielding a lot of questions.
"We get calls all the time; we get social media posts, people asking us, 'When is our next snowstorm?'" said Hasenstein. "And for the most part, we've kind of had to kick the can down the curb and say, 'Oh, maybe next week, maybe the week after.'"
Normally snow is piling up this time of year. While some of that snow will eventually seep into the ground, a lot of it ends downstream.
"And when we have a big rain system like this and our ground isn't frozen, a lot of that gets soaked in and absorbed," said Hasenstein. "That includes wetland areas that have more capacity for rainfall."
Minnesota's plants will also benefit from this. Trees were especially impacted by severe drought and they're still recovering. The rain we received over the holidays will help strengthen them.
"Even though we don't want to see rain at this time of the year, it is good for the trees to get some that precipitation," said Eric Otto, a forest health specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "We're still having lingering effects from the drought and 2021, which was quite historic. That stressed trees all across Minnesota, especially in northern Minnesota where the drought was a little more severe. "
Otto said that trees, especially in the metro area, have been budding.
"We had three days in a row where the highs were in the 50s," said Otto. "Those trees can start breaking bud because it kind of tricks the plants where they think it's warm enough where they should be breaking those buds."
If you're antsy for snowfall, Hasenstein says all you have to do it be patient and soak up the warm weather while you can.
"We're going to end up with snow at some point," said Hasenstein.
The latest information from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that most of Minnesota is in some state of dryness or drought. Hasenstein said that does not account for the holiday rain, and expects most categories to level down by the time the map is released next Thursday.
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