Loop ending Ending 07:43 UTC (02:43 AM CDT), April 20, 2023
WSR-88D radar animation from the National Weather Service
Forecast Office in Duluth, MN

The Duluth, MN seasonal snowfall record was broken on April 20, 2023 during the first few hours after midnight covered by the radar animation. Heavy snow, occasionally mixed with sleet accumulated an inch an hour during this time. The intense red-colored precipitation echoes represent a change in the dominant precipitation type from wet snow to sleet.

The storm produced multiple waves of moderate to heavy precipitation in the form of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. Very light precipitation including freezing drizzle fell between the periods of heavier precipitation. The majority of the precipitation at this author's location fell as sleet from the start of the storm on late evening, April 19 to late afternoon April 20. At various times snow or freezing rain would also dominate. Due to temperatures at the surface and lower troposphere (several thousand feet) holding tightly around freezing, precipitation types varied over very short distances. Someone else's observation of which precipitation type dominated may have been different. Enough freezing rain and freezing drizzle fell to produce a glaze around 0.5 inch on the upwind side of tree branches. Ice generally accumulated 0.25 to 0.4 inches on various other surfaces.

Light snow showers fell for the rest of the storm, the affects of which lingered through April 21 and even April 22 but accumulations were very light. Snow and sleet accumulated 4 to 5 inches in the higher elevations of Duluth. Much less snow, sleet, and freezing rain accumulated at the bottom of the hill and in the City of Superior in Wisconsin. Temperatures in those areas spent more time a little above freezing. Strong east winds gusting over 50 mph combined with the ice to break some tree limbs and cause a few power outages. The cooling affect of those winds rising up the higher terrain helped to keep temperatures just cold enough for the ice accretion to persist.

By the way, as of the end of April, 2023, the new season snowfall record set in Winter 2022-2023 is 140.1 inches. The old record was 135.4 in Winter 1995-1996.