Valentine's Day snow wreaks havoc on Minnesota's roads

Kyeland Jackson, Star Tribune on Feb 15, 2025

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MINNEAPOLIS — Two to 4 inches of snow fell across parts of Minnesota on Friday into Saturday morning, bringing dangerous road conditions that caused spinouts, crashes, jackknifed trucks and injuries, and likely were a factor in the death of a teenage driver in Washington County.

Kyle Everson, a spokesman for the State Patrol, said troopers responded to 453 property-damage crashes, 271 reports of vehicles that went off the road, 35 crashes with injuries, 12 spinouts and 10 jackknifed semitrucks.

Four to 6 inches reportedly fell in the Duluth area and along the North Shore. Nearly 2 inches of snow fell at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport; the west metro got 3.3 inches, and 3 inches fell in St. Paul and Apple Valley.

Authorities said the weather apparently was a factor in a crash in Washington County that killed 17-year-old Elizabeth Radecki of Woodbury.

According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Radecki was the driver of a car that crashed with another just after 4 p.m. at Stagecoach Trail and 10th Street North in West Lakeland Township.

Radecki died at the scene. The other driver was hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries.

The National Weather Service office in Chanhassen forecasts up to 2 inches of snow in north-central and northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota and parts of central, southwest and west-central Wisconsin until Saturday evening, bringing slippery road conditions.

Forecasters predict that dangerous cold will then cut through the region between Sunday and Friday, bringing wind chills to 25 to 45 below zero. An extreme cold watch is in effect from Granite Falls to St. Cloud from Sunday night to Monday morning.

This weekend’s snowfall comes after a band of snow from the Sierra Nevada mountains blanketed the region last week, leaving up to 8 inches in Anoka County. That storm contributed to hundreds of accidents and at least 21 injuries.