December 30, 2008
By James Macpherson
AP
BISMARCK, N.D. — Juanita Grosz didn't bother to measure the depth of snow at her home in Garrison, northwest of Bismarck.
Photo: Larry Boulger of Boulger Funeral Home in Fargo, N.D., cleans snow in subzero temperatures Monday morning Dec. 15, 2008, after a weekend blizzard with winds gusting up to 50 mph shut down the town.The entire state was under a wind chill warning as Monday morning lows included 25 below zero at Dickinson and Williston. Meteorologists said the wind would make it fee like more than 40 below. (AP / Dave Kolpack)
"It doesn't matter — I just know that it's a lot," Grosz said Tuesday. "Everything is solid white; there isn't a track anywhere."
The National Weather Service said Garrison about 13 inches of new snow fell on Garrison, the most accumulation in the state from the latest storm. But it's been a record month for snow in North Dakota.
In Bismarck, the National Weather Service said the overnight storm brought the city's December snow total to 33.5 inches, more than any month on record in Bismarck. It tops the mark of 31.1 inches in March 1975.
Other snowfall amounts included 10 inches each in Turtle Lake and Bowdon, 8.2 inches in Williston, 6 inches in Fargo and about 5 inches in Jamestown and Minot.
Grand Forks and Fargo each set records with more than 30 inches of snow for December. Fargo topped its 1927 record for December by about an inch while Grand Forks topped its 1918 record of 27.6 inches.
The record snow comes as good news for Char Gust, a member of the Rural Cass Snowmobile Club. Gust, who's helping to organize the club's annual rally next month in southeastern North Dakota, said the conditions are ideal for riders.
Gust said she was getting ready Tuesday morning for "one more round" of shoveling out around her house near Absaraka.
"I think that people who live in North Dakota kind of understand that there's going to be snow here," she said. "I think they are comfortable with it and they make accommodations for it."
Grosz, 68, has lived in North Dakota all her life. She and her husband, Leland, own a salvage yard in Garrison.
She said she's heard some grousing in town about the heavy snow and bitter cold after years of mild winters.
"This is something that is normal and we should have had all these years, but we haven't," she said. "People just forget that we get this kind of weather."
Winter weather is easier to deal with now, she said.
"We're not as immobilized as we were years ago," she said. "We have four-wheel drives, snowmobiles and better snowplows. And we have telephones."
Contributing: Associated Press writer Dave Kolpack in Fargo contributed to this report.