Twin Cities sees record October rain

by MinnPost staff 10/03/201710/03/2017

That was a wet one. The Star Tribune’s Tim Harlow report: “A large swath of waterlogged Minnesota will begin to dry out Tuesday afternoon after storms that dropped close to a month’s worth of rain moved through Monday and Tuesday morning. … The Twin Cities set a daily record rainfall total for Oct. 2 with 2.18 inches recorded at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the official weather reporting station for the metropolitan area according to the National Weather Service. Combined with rain that fell Tuesday morning, the Twin Cities has picked up 2.59 inches of rain in the first three days of October, slightly above the average of 2.43 inches the metro area normally receives for the entire month, said Pete Boulay of the Minnesota State Climatology Office.”

With that in mind, wonder how many sprinklers were running this morning … The Star Tribune’s Josephine Marcotty reports: “Most homeowners overwater their lawns — to say nothing of their pavement — and have a love affair with a type of grass that doesn’t really belong in Minnesota. … That’s the wrap-up from a survey of 1,000 Twin Cities residents conducted in an effort to reduce the pointless lawn watering that is draining the metro area’s aquifers and was one of the major issues behind a legal battle over shrinking White Bear Lake. … Conducted by University of Minnesota researchers and the Metropolitan Council, the survey found that more than half of homeowners leave their sprinkling systems on the automatic cycle. That means their lawns get watered whether they need it or not.”

Local perspective on horror in Vegas. The Pioneer Press’ Ross Raihala writes: “The morning after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the streets of Las Vegas felt ‘kind of eerie and quiet,’ said Katie Toupal, a DJ for local country music station BUZ’N 102.9. … Toupal was one of more than 22,000 fans at the Route 91 Harvest Festival when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing at least 58 people. … She spoke from the airport Monday, just minutes before her return flight to Minnesota.”

Norway, Somalia, Minnesota. City Pages’ Susan Du writes: “In Norway, Somali immigrants who fled civil war in the 1990s and 2000s comprise the largest black community as well as the second largest Muslim community, and are elected to public office at a greater rate than any other country in the western world. … Still, Norwegian delegates are looking to Abdirashid Ahmed, Minneapolis’ East African specialist, on how to replicate the success of the Twin Cities’ Somali immigrants. … Last year Norwegian delegates met Ahmed in Minneapolis to tour local mosques and malls. Then they invited him to Norway. Ahmed has just returned from a nine-day sojourn to the small Scandinavian country, where he met with government officials and Somali leaders.”