6 Inches Of ‘Industrial Plant Induced’ Snow Dropped On Dunn County Town

A rare weather event dropped around 6 inches of snow on half of a small town in Dunn County, leaving a light dusting on surrounding areas. Unlike most snowstorms, this snow was the result of steam from nearby factories.

Tyler Knutson is a patrolman for the Town of Colfax. Earlier this month he told WQOW TV that he was called out to clear snow in a peculiarly small area.

“It was only about half the township that had snow in it. The heavy snow was probably a mile wide, and then within a mile outside that range it was just a trace to nothing,” Knutson told the TV station.

According to National Weather Service Meteorologist Caleb Grunzke, the snow came from steam produced by nearby industrial sites.

“I looked at a radar loop and you could see the little plume of radar reflectivity was just sitting over just northeast of Menomonie for at least seven hours,” Grunzke told WPR.

Grunzke said he’s seen this type of thing happen before, and that a nuclear power plant in Monticello, Minnesota sometimes produces snow nearby.

But in order for 6 inches to fall, Grunzke said the air has to be cold enough to produce snow and it has to be saturated to a point that any additional moisture cannot be absorbed. Wind speeds also have to be low.

With the conditions just right, Grunzke said that’s exactly what happened in Colfax on Dec. 4.

“The wind was in a nice direction, wasn’t very strong, just a steady wind blowing the steam in one direction down a stream,” said Grunzke. “So you’re having a bunch of snow being produced over just a small, little area over a prolonged period of time.”

Grunzke described the narrow, 6-inch, band of snow as an extreme case of factory effect snow. He said while there aren’t any power plants near Colfax, there are other potential sources.

“There’s a glass factory,” said Grunzke. “There’s some corn drying plants. There’re about four possibilities that could have produced steam. Maybe they all combined together to help to make it a very extreme amount being released in the atmosphere.”

And Colfax wasn’t the only place in the Midwest to experience a snow event caused by industrial emissions. The National Weather Service Northern Indiana office issued a special weather statement that same evening when steam from a power plant began dropping snow along two highways, reducing visibility.

According to an article published Dec. 5 by The Weather Channel, Kansas, Ohio, Nebraska and Minnesota experienced similar industrial plant induced snow events.