(ABC 6 News) – What started as a rainy day in northern Iowa quickly turned into whopping loads of snow that saw people shoveling, plowing and playing in southeastern Minnesota.

Related: MSP reports 20 crashes in the Rochester area Wednesday morning, afternoon

Jim Jenson was shoveling his driveway in Dodge County on Wednesday. He told me the sudden snow seems like a big deal because the region has not had much this season.

“With the mild winter we’ve had it just seems strange for us,” Jenson said. “But we’ve gotten heavy snowstorms as late as May.”

Several schools in southeast Minnesota gave students the day off and it didn’t take long for kids to indulge in the adventure. Snowballs were thrown and snowmen were made with all the snow.

Related: Wednesday’s snowfall totals

As for the roads, ABC 6 News reached out to two towing companies to see if they would be willing to comment on the snow. One company said they were swamped with the amount of work, whereas the other did not return our call.

Around 7 p.m. snowplows were in the parking lot at Apache Mall clearing the snow.