Snow Surprise

COEUR d’ALENE — Joseph Molina was bundled up as he walked to North Idaho College Friday morning, with snow on the ground and more falling.

As he neared the Edminster Student Union Building, he stopped and smiled. Snow blanketed the ground, cars, benches and trees.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” he said. “It’s April 15, right?”

Kris Raasch, NIC food services director, had a similar reaction when he looked out his window about 6:30 a.m. and was greeted by a winter wonderland of about half a foot of snow.

“Ugh,” he said. “This is not funny.”

“I really wasn’t ready for it,” he added. “I had no boots, no gloves, I didn’t know where they were.”

Raasch said he saw the forecast had said “something about snow. But this was more than something.”

It definitely was, said climatologist Cliff Harris. He said he measured 7.8 inches of heavy, wet snow at his Player Drive home from 8 p.m. Thursday to about noon Friday.

He called it “once in a lifetime” to get this much snow in mid-April. More snow fell overnight than in the previous three months combined.

"This is extremely weird," he said.

The storm followed only 6.4 inches of snow between Jan. 7 to April 6, the least ever for that three-month stretch. It broke the record-low of 7.7 inches for that time frame in 1929.

Harris said the storm was the result of a "very cold trough aloft that refuses to move out of here."

So far in April, 8.7 inches of snow has fallen, breaking the record of 8.2 inches in 1920. It snowed 7.6 inches in April in 2011.

In both of those years, the snow came in early April.

"This is by far the snowiest April so late in the season," Harris said.

Normal April snowfall in Coeur d'Alene is less than an inch.

The storm was centralized to the downtown Coeur d'Alene area, from NIC to Coeur d'Alene Lake Drive and north to Costco and it melted by early afternoon. Beyond that, little snow came down.

The sudden return of winter sent people searching for snow shovels, ice scrapers and the winter gear they had put away weeks ago.

Some headed out Friday morning wielding brooms to brush snow from cars.

Scott Murphy with The Coeur d'Alene Resort was using a leaf blower to blast snow from sidewalks on Sherman Avenue, but didn't have time to talk.

"I have other properties to get to," he said.

Kay Miller of Coeur d’Alene ventured out to walk her dogs, Rebel and Hooter. She had heard about 3 inches of snow could fall, but was surprised to see double that.

“I was really taken aback and amazed because Easter is Sunday. It’s as late almost as it can be and you would think it would be lovely. And now we have this on Good Friday,” Mills said.

Rebel and Hooter enjoyed it.

“They don't mind,” Mills said. “They have fur, they have coats of their own.”

Peter Youngblood, hydrologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said the unexpected snowfall was nice to have, but said it would be hard to say if it would have a significant impact on mountain snowpack or summer water outlook.

He noted that by early afternoon, the snow that covered Coeur d’Alene hours earlier was gone, melted quickly by sunshine and temperatures that reached a high of 41.

He said the mountain snowpack is in a similar state and is ready to melt.

What will help keep snowpack solid are the recent temperatures, with highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s, he said.

“Cold weather is slowing things and keeping the snow up in the mountains,” Youngblood said.

Molina said the spring blizzard might be a sign it will be a cool summer in Coeur d’Alene.

Then again, perhaps not.

“Maybe a scorcher?” he said, smiling.

For the season, Coeur d'Alene snowfall totals 65.3 inches, close to the winter average of 69.8 inches.

There's a chance for more snow tonight and Easter Sunday, as a weak cold front moves in.

"This could be the last one," Harris said. "But don't bet on it."