Early Winter Blanket

Fresh snow blankets the forest of northeast Minnesota on October 28, 2017.

Frosted Forest

Grand Portage, MN - An early snow storm blanketed northern Minnesota with as much as 8 to 12 inches of wet snow on October 28, 2017.  The scenery after the storm was unbelievably beautiful!

Winter Wonderland (In October!)

I'm still a little bit in disbelief at how much snow we received so early this year.  In all my years of living in northeast Minnesota (which in another month will be 42) the earliest I can remember getting this much snow this early is the Halloween "mega-storm" of 1991.  And that was on Halloween... this year it was 4 days before Halloween!  

That year Duluth (150 miles south of where I live) got a dumping of about 36 inches of snow.  It started snowing on Halloween night and didn't stop for 4 days.  Here in Grand Portage we had maybe 6 inches, if I remember correctly.  This year on October 27th/28th Grand Portage received anywhere from 2 or 3 inches (on the Lake Superior shoreline) to as much as 8 to 12 inches (a few miles inland from Lake Superior).  

Most of the snow fell overnight between the 27th and 28th.  I spent the majority of the day on the 28th driving around up in the woods making photographs of the fresh winter beauty.  Speaking of which... it's still more than 50 days until winter officially arrives!  Kind of hard to believe...

Bald Eagle and Blowing Snow

I was lucky yesterday to see this immature bald eagle soaring around near the tops of some spruce trees right as some wind gusts were blowing the fresh snow off the trees.  The blowing snow caught the sunlight and really made for a cool image.  One of the most unique bald eagle photos I've captured!

After the first snow - October 28, 2017

It sure was pretty up in the woods yesterday!  We received the earliest snowfall that I can remember in a loooooong time.  There was about 6 to 10 inches on the ground, depending on where you were.  The clouds parted enough mid-day that there was some blue sky which always adds a nice touch to fresh snowfall.  This photo was taken along Old Highway 61 in Grand Portage, MN.

Beautiful October Snow!

So I was in the post office today and there was a woman at the counter talking with the postmaster and every word coming out of her mouth was about how much she couldn't stand the winters here (for those that don't know, we had some nasty weather the last few days which left us with some really beautiful snow).  She actually said "Who would want to continue living in this HELL???"  I looked at her and said "Ummmmm.... I do... it's beautiful here!"  After that encounter I took a drive up in the woods and within 10 minutes of leaving the post office I came across this beautiful scene with the sun shining through the trees blanketed in snow.  If hell is this beautiful, heaven must be AMAZING!  

It's that time of year again!

Winter weather today meant that the plows were out! Which means that it's plow truck photo season again! Ha ha ha... those that know me know that I have an obsession with taking photos of plow trucks in action.  This guy was really flinging the snow today!