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2024 Hennepin County All -Jurisdiction Hazard Mitigation Plan <br />Volume 2 — Hazard Inventory <br />Typical weather pattern associated with major winter storms in Minnesota and Upper Midwest. Source <br />NOAA, http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/winter/resources/Winter_Storms2008.pdf <br />Unfortunately, blizzards are not consistently tracked and are difficult to diagnose retroactively. <br />Moreover, most major winter storms in Hennepin County have not prompted Blizzard Warnings. In fact, <br />one of the last NWS-issued Blizzard Warning in Hennepin County was on November 1-2, 1991, during the <br />infamous Halloween Blizzard. However, many winter storms have produced Blizzard warnings in <br />neighboring counties, along with winds in Hennepin County that significantly compounded the impacts <br />from accumulating snow. Therefore, to avoid confusion and the misattribution of impacts, in this report, a <br />blizzard is any accumulating snow event known to have a significant wind -driven and blowing snow <br />component. <br />While many winter storms produce sleet and/or freezing rain, Hennepin County Emergency Management <br />recognizes these as distinct hazards and will cover them separately. <br />4.3.11.2. Range of Magnitude <br />A given location in Hennepin County sees 24-hour snowfall totals over six inches once or twice per year <br />on average, though there have been years with five or more such events. Blizzards, on the other hand, <br />recur approximately once every 3-4 years in western and northwestern parts of the county, and every 6- <br />170 <br />