Nose for News, By Sarah Stultz

Sunday evening as the snow came to an end in Albert Lea, I received text messages from two family members who had experienced their own challenges with the weather that day — though not with snow.

My older sister, who lives in Toronto, Canada, and her family had been dealing with an ice storm, which led to a power outage at one point, and my parents, who live in southwestern Virginia, had just had a tornado warning. Thankfully, they were OK, but a tornado touched down in a city about an hour away from them. A tornado also reportedly touched down in Greensboro, North Carolina, in the city of the airport that we flew in and out of a few weeks ago when we went back home to visit.

Mother Nature sure did have a busy weekend! I guess I shouldn’t just say “weekend” because it has been a crazy year of weather all over the country.

While stuck in the house writing updates about the snowfall through the weekend, it got me thinking about weather records for our area — especially considering this long, drawn-out winter.

When I start thinking about if I’m going to be able to plant my garden any time soon, I first think about Fountain Lake’s ice-out records. For me, it’s a good gauge of how the rest of the spring season is going to go.

The earliest the ice has ever melted since 1912 —when the ice-out date was first recorded on Fountain Lake — was March 7. The latest was April 30. According to these records, the ice has never lasted into May.

Knowing that March 7 was over a month ago is a little depressing, but the good news is that unless we’re going to break any records, it is likely our ice will be gone in two weeks — and with that hopefully our snow, too. (Unless of course we are going to break a new record, which is definitely possible, considering all of the other records we have broken this year.)

Speaking of records, the all-time total for snow inches in April was 18 in 1928. Temperature wise, we are way off track from the normal temperatures at this time of the year when temperatures are in the 50s.

The normal high for today’s date is 57 and the low 36. It seems like our lows have been the highs.

It’s too soon to tell what tonight’s storm holds, but if it’s anything like what the forecast is saying, we’re on our way toward breaking some more records.

Pulitzer Prizes

On a completely unrelated note, the winners of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize were announced Monday.

I watched as the winners for the journalism categories were announced and sat in awe as I listened to the topics of some of the winning stories.

I am now beginning to look up the award-winning work of those who won, and have been astounded at the stories I have read so far.

Some like to read good books; I like to read good journalism. Though I have only read a few of the winners so far, I have been motivated and proud by what I have read.

There has never been a greater time to be a journalist. It’s something I take seriously, and I am proud to see so many others do as well.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.