Endless winter takes a mental toll

Joel Krochalk
Joel Krochalk clears his driveway on Friday, April 19, 2013, while surrounding by deeply drifted snow in his and neighboring yards in Duluth, Minn.
AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King

Winter weather is still wreaking havoc with Minnesotans as snow continues to fall late into April.

The latest storm to sweep across Minnesota on Monday and early Tuesday dropped up to 8 inches of snow in northern parts of the state. Duluth, with 50.2 inches this month, had both the snowiest April and snowiest month ever on record.

The crummy weather has led to hate mail for MPR News' senior meteorologist, Paul Huttner, who writes the weather blog Updraft, and people are truly fed up.

One snowplow driver, Dan Charipar, says he can't believe he's plowing in the last week of April: "It's been busy ... It kind of makes me sick to my stomach, but we live in Minnesota. What do you do?"

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Like many Minnesotans, Charipar may feel sick over the prolonged winter, but what is it doing to his mental health?

A weather and climate psychologist, Alan Stewart, specializes in the effects of weather on the psyche. Of course, he works at the University of Georgia, and the forecast in his neighborhood on Tuesday is sunny and 75 degrees.

In the Twin Cities: partly cloudy and 39.

Grrr.