A white Christmas

According to the National Weather Service, the total snowfall accumulation in Ekalaka from Tuesday through Friday of last week was 25 inches. An additional 1.4 inches was recorded throughout the remainder of the weekend. Total snowfall for the month as of December 20th was 32 inches, and the current snow depth in town was measured at 21 inches.

December of 2022 has already seen more snowfall than at least any other December this century, according to the NWS. The next highest total of the 2000s occurred in December of 2013 (23 inches).

This Tuesday fell just shy of breaking a record cold for the day when the mercury dipped as low as 26 degrees below zero. December 20, 1951 still holds that honor at -28.

Ekalaka Public Schools did not run buses on December 13th due to last week's blizzard. School was let out at 1 p.m. that day and eventually canceled for the remainder of the week as the storm forced several area road closures. A high school basketball game was also forced to be postponed.

This week, with wind chills falling to extremely dangerous levels, EPS originally planned to shorten the school day on Thursday before ultimately making the decision to cancel classes for Thursday and run buses early on Wednesday.

A windchill warning was scheduled to run until noon on Friday and showed the potential for wind chills to be as low as 40 to 60 below zero. Additional snowfall also came on Wednesday morning.