City Of Duluth To Remove Snow Piles On Superior Street This Week

While last week's blizzard is about a week in the rear-view mirror, it is still having impacts on the Duluth area.

After several inches of heavy, wet snow fell in the Twin Ports area during the mid-week storm, city, county, and state crews worked hard to get and keep roadways open. During those removal efforts to keep roads open, sizable snowbanks have accumulated along roads.

In Downtown Duluth, the effects of these snowbanks are felt at an amplified level, as they are making access and use of sidewalks difficult, or even impossible in some cases.

The City of Duluth is now turning its focus to clearing these snowbanks, with crews to work on clearing Downtown Duluth's busiest thoroughfare beginning tomorrow, potentially lasting a couple of days.

Timeline & Impacts For Superior Street Snow Removal In Downtown Duluth

Nick Cooper - TSM Duluth

If you've been downtown at all since Wednesday morning, you've probably noticed no parking signs on Superior Street like the ones pictured in this article. City officials began planting these signs to warn the public about the impacts of this week's snow removal project.

Those signs are letting the public know that parking on Superior Street will not be allowed starting at 7 am on Thursday, February 26.

Crews will begin their snow removal project around 7 am, starting with the section of Superior Street between 6th Avenue West and Lake Avenue. They will continue their work eastward as far as they can go on Thursday, with the goal of at least clearing this first section.

The Downtown section of Superior Street east of Lake Avenue will be cleared after that work is completed, either later in the day on Thursday or Friday.

During this removal process, there will be a bunch of snow removal equipment, which may impact traffic at times. Duluth Police will be in the area of the active snow removal project, helping control traffic.

Once snow is removed, parking will again be available.

What about Canal Park?

The organization Downtown Duluth reports that city officials have yet to determine a start date for snow removal in Canal Park.

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If I had to guess, it is likely to start shortly after their Superior Street snow removal project is completed, likely sometime next week (the first week of March).

The 15 Snowiest Winters On Record In Duluth History

Since the National Weather Service began keeping weather records in Duluth in the late 1800s, here are the 15 winters with the highest snowfall totals on historical record.

It is worth noting that the official records from 1941-today have been recorded at the area now known as the Duluth International Airport (away from the lake, on top of the hill). Before then, various locations closer to Lake Superior had been used for official weather recording data. For anyone that knows anything about how Lake Superior and the hill play a role in temperature and snow, you can see how this makes older records inherently different.

While these records note the "snowiest winters", they actually include all seasonal snowfall from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

Gallery Credit: Nick Cooper - TSM Duluth

Source: Downtown Duluth Snow Removal Plans, Timeline Announced