'There were tears': Fresh snow is welcome news for Cross Country World Cup organizers
Organizers prepare for the Loppet Cup this weekend after the first snowfall of 2024.
Courtesy of the Loppet Foundation.
It seems like winter is keeping us on our toes this year. After an unusually warm and wet January, those of us in the central and southern part of the state woke up to as much as seven inches of fresh snow Thursday morning.
It’s the biggest accumulation of the winter so far. And for many of us, the snow is a welcome sight, especially for organizers of the Cross Country World Cup, happening this weekend at Theodore Wirth Park. The course had been filled with artificial snow, but now it will have the real stuff.
MPR Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about snow total and how long the snow will stick around, along with Claire Wilson, the executive director of the Loppet Foundation.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: It seems like winter's keeping us on our toes this year. After an unusually warm and rainy January, those of us in the Central and Southern part of the state woke up to as much as 7 inches of fresh snow this morning. It's the biggest snowfall of the weirdly wimpy winter so far. For many of us, the snow is a welcome sight, including for Cathy Kukella and her dog, Bert, in Minneapolis.
SUBJECT: This is our first walk out. He's remembering snow. And I'm just delighted at the bright sunshine, and the blue sky, and the powdery white snow.
CATHY WURZER: MPR meteorologist Sven Sundgaard is here to talk about the snow and what we can expect going into the weekend. Now, that wasn't a bad Valentine's Day snowstorm at all.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: No. It was kind of nice. It forced everybody to stay home with their Valentine, maybe, and enjoy a little quality time. We haven't had these snowed-in nights yet this winter-- pretty incredible out there. And while I know a lot of people like to complain about winter, I think most people, it seems like, actually are enjoying it because we really were overdue for this.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah. I think you're right. So who got what?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, we got almost 7 inches-- 6.9 at MSP, 7.2 in Victoria, just over a half foot in White Bear Lake. Now, as you went north and south of the Twin Cities in that line that continued to the west in South Dakota, it was less-- 3 inches in Mankato. Waite Park just outside St. Cloud at 2.5, and just under a couple inches in Rochester.
But it broke a 74-year-old record for Valentine's Day snowfall set back in 1950. We broke it by a half inch-- biggest snowfall since last spring. March 31 to April 1, we had 8.5 inches of snow then. And then you might remember, a week and a half later, we had that string of 80s to almost 90-degree temperatures.
Talk about a weird year last year, too. And then up to this point. We only had 7.3 inches of snow for the season. So we nearly doubled our seasonal snowfall just in this one storm. But we are still, Cathy, more than a foot and a half behind for seasonal snowfall-- 20.2 inches behind in MSP, and Duluth is still more than 40 inches behind. Northern Minnesota, it's worth noting, got nothing out of this system.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so it's one system, right? And it's been really warm this winter. What are the chances of seeing more snow?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Well, I'm sure we will see some more snow, but will we see another storm? That's hard to say. March can always throw something at us. And a lot of people may be wondering, well, why did we finally get it now? What's been going on this winter?
And of course, it's been very mild. But it's really been more of a luck-of-the-draw thing. There has been some snowfalls to the North, way below normal. But we also had a lot of snow to the South people might-- remember when we had that week of cold weather, places like Kansas, Missouri had quite a bit of snowfall.
And we just happened to miss out that. So we finally just were in the storm track for a brief period. There's no more snow in sight, unfortunately, for the next 7 to 10 days. In fact, we're looking at above normal temperatures returning probably near 40 by Sunday and into the 40s next week.
In fact, one of our models, the European model, next week has us 50 degrees on Wednesday. So if you enjoy the snow, get out there and enjoy it these next couple of days.
CATHY WURZER: Aw, it's likely to melt. Oh, shoot. All right, so let's talk a little bit here about February warmth. Gosh, we're almost halfway through. Oh, my goodness.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: And it's a long month too. Yeah, we've been averaging 18--
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, but.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, it's one day longer, though, this year, the leap year.
CATHY WURZER: That's true.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: 18 to 19 degrees above normal for the Twin Cities so far. So we're going to have kind of a couple days of a correction, today and tomorrow a little cooler. But the number one spot for February is 1998, which was also a super El Niño year.
And it looks as though we could very well beat that when we plug in the forecast numbers for the rest of the month. So despite this little hiccup of some snow and two days of cooler weather, this has been a really off-the-charts February.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. All right, so you mentioned that this snow is likely going to melt, so more of this super warm weather coming in. I'm wondering, briefly, though, for folks, because we're going to talk about this-- Friday, it'll be colder. So folks heading out to the World Cup ski race this weekend might expect what?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah. It'll be colder, but not crazy cold where you can't get out and enjoy it-- just sort of that normal cold you'd expect in February. Highs mostly in the 20s to 30s on Saturday, should have sunshine, looks like a great weekend. Tonight, it'll be cold, though-- subzero Northern Minnesota, subzero wind chills for most of the state early tomorrow.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Sven, thanks.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: You're very welcome, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: That is Sven Sundgaard, our meteorologist. By the way, you can always stay up-to-date with what Sven's forecasts are talking about and what's happening in the weather by going to the Updraft blog at mprnews.org.
OK, there are many happy Minnesotans who are snow lovers. And that includes the legions of cross-country ski fans, not to mention the organizers of the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup this weekend that I mentioned. It's the first time in 23 years the circuit has included a US competition. Anticipation is very high after the pandemic canceled the first race back in 2020.
The organizers of this year's Loppet Cup have been working around-the-clock to put on an event that, until now, well, didn't have any natural snow. The Executive Director of the Loppet Foundation Claire Wilson is joining us ahead of this weekend's race. Claire, thanks for taking the time. I'm sure you're busy.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Well, you woke up this morning, you saw the snow on the ground, and you said--
CLAIRE WILSON: It's magic. "Someone loves the Loppet" is what we said. It's just-- it's thrilling to have it come now.
CATHY WURZER: So what does it mean for you? I mean, is it just a big relief? Is it more work? How do you look at this?
CLAIRE WILSON: It's a little bit of both. On one hand, it is so beautiful. And now, Theodore Wirth Park looks as lovely as you could imagine in the winter. Jessie Diggins just skied by. It is beautiful.
Obviously, it's a little more work for us in terms of preparing for the spectators and snow removal, which suddenly we all forgot how to do. But having planned a snow-based event for a solid year, with no snow up until this very moment, it's joyful.
CATHY WURZER: Now, you had a track of artificial snow already in place. Is that right?
CLAIRE WILSON: That's correct. We were prepared to hold the race regardless of whether or not we received the snowfall.
CATHY WURZER: OK. So you have this artificial snow base and now some natural snow on top. Does that make a difference in terms of how skiers might navigate the course?
CLAIRE WILSON: Well, the skiers are out on it right now. And it certainly has, maybe, for the time being, slowed it down a bit. But once the snow gets mixed in there with the snow base that was already there, it is going to be a beautiful surface for the skiers on Saturday and Sunday.
CATHY WURZER: So it sounds like you might be out of the danger zone-- or, well, as Sven said, it's going to get warmer here. But it sounds like you might have some time.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, there is nothing Mother Nature could throw at us now that we cannot handle. We are so ready for this race. There are thousands and thousands of people pouring into the Cities right now for it. And Mother Nature, anything can happen now. We are ready.
CATHY WURZER: How many people are you expecting to show up to watch? How many thousands?
CLAIRE WILSON: Well, we're expecting over 35,000 people over the course of the weekend.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. OK. So that's why this is a really, really big deal. And how many competitors? I should know this, but I don't.
CLAIRE WILSON: This is a huge deal. So we have 180 competitors from 21 different nations. The world's best skiers are skiing in our public park right now in Minneapolis.
CATHY WURZER: Tell me about the prep leading up to this. Obviously, I can hear in your voice you're obviously very excited and pretty relieved. But what has it been like leading up to this moment?
CLAIRE WILSON: Cathy, it's been incredible. We are a small nonprofit putting on an international event in a year where it did not snow. So it was literally hundreds of volunteers and staff together preserving this trail of snow through that intense warmup.
So that included us asking people to stay off the trails. It included loading in snow from other areas. It included blanketing the snow to save it. So, really, it has been a year of prep with a solid three months of intense work to save our snow.
CATHY WURZER: Looking back on everything that has happened, would you do it again?
[CLAIRE LAUGHS]
CLAIRE WILSON: For this moment right now, to see these skiers skiing on this course, where, typically, we have our school kids from North Minneapolis, all of our rec skiers, all the legions who've learned to ski at Theodore Wirth, and these world class skiers skiing on our world class ski trails? We couldn't be prouder and more excited. Every inch of work was worth it.
CATHY WURZER: By the way, Claire, are you a skier?
CLAIRE WILSON: I am a skier. Yes.
CATHY WURZER: Do you plan on getting out yet today or tomorrow?
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, I sure hope so. We're reserving it for the athletes, but I'm hoping they'll let me sneak on for just a minute.
CATHY WURZER: Because you haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to really do any skiing this winter, that's for certain.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, my gosh. Yes. All of us have been bereft, just missing the sport we love and the snow we love. And so I think there were a lot of tears here today.
I think just the relief that it's actually happening, the magic that the snow brings us all-- and we just wanted to welcome people to snowy Minneapolis. And I guess the universe wanted that too.
CATHY WURZER: Claire Wilson, best of luck. Thank you so much.
CLAIRE WILSON: Thank you so much. See you on the trails.
CATHY WURZER: Claire Wilson is the Executive Director of the Loppet Foundation. And, of course, she was talking about Jessie Diggins-- Afton's own Jessie Diggins. She's in town, and she's going to be competing. We're going to talk with Jess after the race weekend. Tune in Monday at noon to hear how Jessie Diggins felt about her homecoming and the race.
SUBJECT: This is our first walk out. He's remembering snow. And I'm just delighted at the bright sunshine, and the blue sky, and the powdery white snow.
CATHY WURZER: MPR meteorologist Sven Sundgaard is here to talk about the snow and what we can expect going into the weekend. Now, that wasn't a bad Valentine's Day snowstorm at all.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: No. It was kind of nice. It forced everybody to stay home with their Valentine, maybe, and enjoy a little quality time. We haven't had these snowed-in nights yet this winter-- pretty incredible out there. And while I know a lot of people like to complain about winter, I think most people, it seems like, actually are enjoying it because we really were overdue for this.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah. I think you're right. So who got what?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, we got almost 7 inches-- 6.9 at MSP, 7.2 in Victoria, just over a half foot in White Bear Lake. Now, as you went north and south of the Twin Cities in that line that continued to the west in South Dakota, it was less-- 3 inches in Mankato. Waite Park just outside St. Cloud at 2.5, and just under a couple inches in Rochester.
But it broke a 74-year-old record for Valentine's Day snowfall set back in 1950. We broke it by a half inch-- biggest snowfall since last spring. March 31 to April 1, we had 8.5 inches of snow then. And then you might remember, a week and a half later, we had that string of 80s to almost 90-degree temperatures.
Talk about a weird year last year, too. And then up to this point. We only had 7.3 inches of snow for the season. So we nearly doubled our seasonal snowfall just in this one storm. But we are still, Cathy, more than a foot and a half behind for seasonal snowfall-- 20.2 inches behind in MSP, and Duluth is still more than 40 inches behind. Northern Minnesota, it's worth noting, got nothing out of this system.
CATHY WURZER: OK, so it's one system, right? And it's been really warm this winter. What are the chances of seeing more snow?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Well, I'm sure we will see some more snow, but will we see another storm? That's hard to say. March can always throw something at us. And a lot of people may be wondering, well, why did we finally get it now? What's been going on this winter?
And of course, it's been very mild. But it's really been more of a luck-of-the-draw thing. There has been some snowfalls to the North, way below normal. But we also had a lot of snow to the South people might-- remember when we had that week of cold weather, places like Kansas, Missouri had quite a bit of snowfall.
And we just happened to miss out that. So we finally just were in the storm track for a brief period. There's no more snow in sight, unfortunately, for the next 7 to 10 days. In fact, we're looking at above normal temperatures returning probably near 40 by Sunday and into the 40s next week.
In fact, one of our models, the European model, next week has us 50 degrees on Wednesday. So if you enjoy the snow, get out there and enjoy it these next couple of days.
CATHY WURZER: Aw, it's likely to melt. Oh, shoot. All right, so let's talk a little bit here about February warmth. Gosh, we're almost halfway through. Oh, my goodness.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: And it's a long month too. Yeah, we've been averaging 18--
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, but.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, it's one day longer, though, this year, the leap year.
CATHY WURZER: That's true.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: 18 to 19 degrees above normal for the Twin Cities so far. So we're going to have kind of a couple days of a correction, today and tomorrow a little cooler. But the number one spot for February is 1998, which was also a super El Niño year.
And it looks as though we could very well beat that when we plug in the forecast numbers for the rest of the month. So despite this little hiccup of some snow and two days of cooler weather, this has been a really off-the-charts February.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. All right, so you mentioned that this snow is likely going to melt, so more of this super warm weather coming in. I'm wondering, briefly, though, for folks, because we're going to talk about this-- Friday, it'll be colder. So folks heading out to the World Cup ski race this weekend might expect what?
SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah. It'll be colder, but not crazy cold where you can't get out and enjoy it-- just sort of that normal cold you'd expect in February. Highs mostly in the 20s to 30s on Saturday, should have sunshine, looks like a great weekend. Tonight, it'll be cold, though-- subzero Northern Minnesota, subzero wind chills for most of the state early tomorrow.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Sven, thanks.
SVEN SUNDGAARD: You're very welcome, Cathy.
CATHY WURZER: That is Sven Sundgaard, our meteorologist. By the way, you can always stay up-to-date with what Sven's forecasts are talking about and what's happening in the weather by going to the Updraft blog at mprnews.org.
OK, there are many happy Minnesotans who are snow lovers. And that includes the legions of cross-country ski fans, not to mention the organizers of the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup this weekend that I mentioned. It's the first time in 23 years the circuit has included a US competition. Anticipation is very high after the pandemic canceled the first race back in 2020.
The organizers of this year's Loppet Cup have been working around-the-clock to put on an event that, until now, well, didn't have any natural snow. The Executive Director of the Loppet Foundation Claire Wilson is joining us ahead of this weekend's race. Claire, thanks for taking the time. I'm sure you're busy.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
CATHY WURZER: Well, you woke up this morning, you saw the snow on the ground, and you said--
CLAIRE WILSON: It's magic. "Someone loves the Loppet" is what we said. It's just-- it's thrilling to have it come now.
CATHY WURZER: So what does it mean for you? I mean, is it just a big relief? Is it more work? How do you look at this?
CLAIRE WILSON: It's a little bit of both. On one hand, it is so beautiful. And now, Theodore Wirth Park looks as lovely as you could imagine in the winter. Jessie Diggins just skied by. It is beautiful.
Obviously, it's a little more work for us in terms of preparing for the spectators and snow removal, which suddenly we all forgot how to do. But having planned a snow-based event for a solid year, with no snow up until this very moment, it's joyful.
CATHY WURZER: Now, you had a track of artificial snow already in place. Is that right?
CLAIRE WILSON: That's correct. We were prepared to hold the race regardless of whether or not we received the snowfall.
CATHY WURZER: OK. So you have this artificial snow base and now some natural snow on top. Does that make a difference in terms of how skiers might navigate the course?
CLAIRE WILSON: Well, the skiers are out on it right now. And it certainly has, maybe, for the time being, slowed it down a bit. But once the snow gets mixed in there with the snow base that was already there, it is going to be a beautiful surface for the skiers on Saturday and Sunday.
CATHY WURZER: So it sounds like you might be out of the danger zone-- or, well, as Sven said, it's going to get warmer here. But it sounds like you might have some time.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, there is nothing Mother Nature could throw at us now that we cannot handle. We are so ready for this race. There are thousands and thousands of people pouring into the Cities right now for it. And Mother Nature, anything can happen now. We are ready.
CATHY WURZER: How many people are you expecting to show up to watch? How many thousands?
CLAIRE WILSON: Well, we're expecting over 35,000 people over the course of the weekend.
CATHY WURZER: Wow. OK. So that's why this is a really, really big deal. And how many competitors? I should know this, but I don't.
CLAIRE WILSON: This is a huge deal. So we have 180 competitors from 21 different nations. The world's best skiers are skiing in our public park right now in Minneapolis.
CATHY WURZER: Tell me about the prep leading up to this. Obviously, I can hear in your voice you're obviously very excited and pretty relieved. But what has it been like leading up to this moment?
CLAIRE WILSON: Cathy, it's been incredible. We are a small nonprofit putting on an international event in a year where it did not snow. So it was literally hundreds of volunteers and staff together preserving this trail of snow through that intense warmup.
So that included us asking people to stay off the trails. It included loading in snow from other areas. It included blanketing the snow to save it. So, really, it has been a year of prep with a solid three months of intense work to save our snow.
CATHY WURZER: Looking back on everything that has happened, would you do it again?
[CLAIRE LAUGHS]
CLAIRE WILSON: For this moment right now, to see these skiers skiing on this course, where, typically, we have our school kids from North Minneapolis, all of our rec skiers, all the legions who've learned to ski at Theodore Wirth, and these world class skiers skiing on our world class ski trails? We couldn't be prouder and more excited. Every inch of work was worth it.
CATHY WURZER: By the way, Claire, are you a skier?
CLAIRE WILSON: I am a skier. Yes.
CATHY WURZER: Do you plan on getting out yet today or tomorrow?
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, I sure hope so. We're reserving it for the athletes, but I'm hoping they'll let me sneak on for just a minute.
CATHY WURZER: Because you haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to really do any skiing this winter, that's for certain.
CLAIRE WILSON: Oh, my gosh. Yes. All of us have been bereft, just missing the sport we love and the snow we love. And so I think there were a lot of tears here today.
I think just the relief that it's actually happening, the magic that the snow brings us all-- and we just wanted to welcome people to snowy Minneapolis. And I guess the universe wanted that too.
CATHY WURZER: Claire Wilson, best of luck. Thank you so much.
CLAIRE WILSON: Thank you so much. See you on the trails.
CATHY WURZER: Claire Wilson is the Executive Director of the Loppet Foundation. And, of course, she was talking about Jessie Diggins-- Afton's own Jessie Diggins. She's in town, and she's going to be competing. We're going to talk with Jess after the race weekend. Tune in Monday at noon to hear how Jessie Diggins felt about her homecoming and the race.
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