Latest winter storm a dud, Government panic sets new records

The latest snow storm to hit the state dropped an impressive 13 inches of snow on the Metro area. But, somehow managed to fall well short of expectations.

As the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported this afternoon, “Minnesotans begin digging out from two-day storm.” The paper concedes that after a week-long build up,

The powerful storm didn’t bring quite as much snow as originally forecast, said National Weather Service meteorologist Paige Marten.

Adding,

“The storm might be a little underperforming, but the impact between a foot and 18 inches is likely the same,” Marten said.

A foot, a foot-and-a-half, what’s the difference? Six inches and 50 percent.

Either way, it’s a lot of snow. But the official 13.1 inches at the airport didn’t even crack the top ten all-time list.

While the snow may have underwhelmed, government hype did not disappoint. The Governor declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. This video montage rounds up the pre-storm panic:

Now that the storm has come and gone, we’ll see how it takes the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to dig out.

A followup article in the Star Tribune asks,

It wasn’t quite snowpocalypse. Did we over-freak-out?

The Star Tribune goes on to report that neither government officials nor meteorologists have any regrets. They never do, do they?

“No regrets at all,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Thursday afternoon. “For something like this, no one loses from being overprepared. And we still have a lot to do.”

Except the taxpayer, the student, the motorist, the retail business owner, etc. Elected officials have gotten so used to declaring emergencies, cutting corners on governing, that they don’t see the toll that 24/7 DEFCON 1 status takes on the populace.