‘It’s Wisconsin:’ spring snowstorm slams Fox Valley

APPLETON, Wis. (WBAY) - People fired up their snowblowers and dug out their shovels Saturday.

“I didn’t know it was supposed to snow. It’s been sunny!” Lorren Newingham of Appleton said. “We’ve been enjoying walks every day after work and then we wake up to snow? It’s like, c’mon!”

According to the WBAY First Alert Weather Center, the Fox Valley received the most snow. A new daily record snowfall of 10″ was set in Green Bay. Appleton set a new daily snowfall record of 11.8″..

It’s officially spring, but it sure doesn’t feel like it for young Stella Van Lith and others putting in the leg work to clear the snow around their cars and homes.

“I was just shocked because this is probably a lot of snow... like the ‘lottest’ that we’ve had of snow,” Van Lith explained while playing with her dog and helping her dad shovel. “It’s kind of weird. It’s really weird... because it’s April and it’s kind of close to spring and summer.”

Chad Vanloo took on a big task. He plowed snow from the parking lots of an Appleton apartment complex.

“I was hoping for a couple of inches but that didn’t happen. Now we’ve got all this mess to clean up over here,” Vanloo told Action 2 News from inside his truck. “It’s a lot of stickiness. A lot of slipperiness. We’ve had cars stuck in the ditches up front here so it’s... basically I gotta get this so people stop getting stuck.”

One man we spoke with... not so lucky.

“Yeah, I was hoping this driveway would’ve been plowed already but I guess, you know. It’s not under my control,” Brandon Barth said. “It’s spring time. We should be enjoying some 50, 60 degree weather and it’s about a foot of snow out here.”

Barth couldn’t get into his garage after pulling into his complex. The wheels of his car kept spinning in the fresh snow.

One thing is for certain. People in Northeast Wisconsin are ready to tackle anything that comes their way.

“I mean, it’s not our first rodeo. It’s part of what comes with living in the midwest. Sometimes you get snow in March or April or May,” Peter Hoffert of Appleton said. “It won’t be the first time it’s ever happened. It won’t be the last. You just take what you got and shovel the snow.”

Barth continued, “I think it’s just the new normal around here in Wisconsin. I think winter’s lasting a lot longer than it used to and that’s something we’ll have to prepare for.”

“I think it makes us appreciate summer a lot more. That’s for sure,” Jodi Koller of Sherwood said while snow blowing her driveway. “It was kind of a sad scene when I stepped outside.”

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