Are Minnesota deer already in the clear this winter?

A year ago at this time, pink began to appear across a large northern swath of the Minnesota DNR’s “winter severity index” map.
By winter season’s end (the last map was produced May 10, 2023), that pink shade had stretched to the southern limits of the state. In the northern reaches, it had long been replaced by purple and black, and whitetails across the northland had been left in the wake of another severe – measured by cold and by snow – winter season. Odds are, this winter won’t be a repeat of last.