Star Tribune
Streak-busting snowfall, “cold’ on tap for metro, southern Minnesota Wednesday and Thursday
The longest January Thaw recorded in Twin Cities weather history is about to come to an end, first with what’s expected to be the largest snowfall of the season, followed by the coldest day in more than three weeks.
A fast-moving front is forecast to bring 2 to 5 inches of snow across much of southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities, where a winter weather advisory is in effect from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday morning. Along with the metro, cities included in the advisory include Willmar, Redwood Falls, Mankato, Faribault and Rochester, the National Weather Service said.
Some places under the advisory could see 6 inches or more as the storm passes through, said Melissa Dye, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen.
“It’s tricky to nail that down,” she said. “We won’t know where until right before it happens.”
What is a sure bet is that thousands of Minnesotans will be pushing shovels or cranking up snow blowers for perhaps the first time this season to clear away wet-heavy snow.
“If you are driving, keep it slow,” Dye said. If shoveling, “take it easy.”
The Twin Cities has not seen measurable snow in 25 days, and the Valentine’s night storm could bring the largest snowfall of the season, which ironically happened over Halloween. The metro area picked up 2.7 inches on Oct. 30 and 31, the Weather Service said.
Since then, the Twin Cities has picked up a paltry 7.3 inches of snow for the season, with the last measurable snow recorded on Jan. 19. Three days after that, the mercury rose above the freezing mark, and high temperatures in the metro have reached 32 degrees or higher every day since.
That streak of 24 days has made for the longest January Thaw in the metro in the more than 180 years of weather record keeping. A January Thaw is defined as two consecutive days of above freezing temperatures during January, though they can start in December and run into February provided two of the days are in the first month of the year, the State Climatology Office said.
The old mark of 21 straight days was set from Dec. 19, 2006 to Jan. 8, 2007. St. Cloud had its longest January Thaw on record this year, spanning 17 days from Jan. 24 to Feb. 9, the Climatology Office said.
This year’s run of above 32-degree days will end on Thursday and Friday when temperatures are expected to drop back to what they should be for the second week of February. Thursday’s high will be around 30 degrees, and Friday — gasp — a bone-chilling 23 degrees.
The two-day event should be a brief interlude from the warm and snowless winter, which has already produced six record high temperatures in the Twin Cities, including 57 degrees on Feb. 6. Thermometers have recorded 12 days of high temperatures of 50 degrees or warmer in December, January and February, the three months defined as meteorological winter.
Records have tumbled in other cities, too. International Falls, known as the “Nation’s Ice Box,” had never seen 50 degrees in January. This year it happened twice. Rochester, St. Cloud and the metro have each set six record high temperatures over the past three months, and February still has two more weeks to go.
“We are excited for a snowstorm,” Dye said. “It’s our real first snow of the season.”
But don’t expect the snow or the colder air to hang around, too long, Dye said.
“This is not a signal for those who like colder weather,” she said.
Temperatures are expected to moderate back into the 30s by Sunday, and the long-range forecast from the Climate Prediction Center calls for warmer than average temperatures to hang around for the next two months.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
