Cool, cloudy weather ahead for Halloween in Minnesota, plus the latest on Hurricane Melissa

NINA MOINI: Today is day one of recovery for Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa reached its shores with destructive winds and flooding Tuesday afternoon. Samantha Warren is a South Minneapolis resident, and right now, she's stranded in her mother's home in Jamaica from the storm.

SUSAN WARREN: You could see the big waves though. It looks very unsettled. And then the clouds-- the sky is covered with clouds. You don't see a sliver of sun anywhere, and that's not usual at all. It's usually at least a little sliver of sun.

I feel calm, but I'm worried about the aftermath as everyone else because they say when the power goes out like this after a hurricane, it could be months, weeks before it comes back on.

NINA MOINI: MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner's here now with the latest on Hurricane Melissa and a weather forecast closer to home. Thanks for being here, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: Oh, it's my pleasure, Nina. I really feel for all the folks in Jamaica today. What a-- what an incredible storm they just went through.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. And we heard there from Samantha talking about the aftermath and when the power goes out but tell us more about what hurricane Melissa was looking like. What's the latest?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, this was a record setting hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean on many, many levels. It was the strongest Atlantic landfall that hit land in terms of pressure. It tied the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, so you have to go back that far to see a storm this strong make landfall. It's also all time in the Atlantic, the third strongest Atlantic hurricane, those 185-mile-an-hour sustained winds category 5 when it was South of Jamaica there moving ashore.

The ocean temperatures are what fueled this thing. They were 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. That probably made Melissa about 10% to 15% stronger than it would have been otherwise with normal ocean temperatures. And the hurricane hunters, they recorded a wind gust.

So they fly into these storms, and they drop these canisters that have weather sensors in them. And one of those recorded a wind gust of 252 miles an hour 650 feet above the surface. That appears to be pending verification the highest wind gust ever recorded on planet Earth by any kind of an instrument. And, in fact, the storm was so powerful, the turbulence that they had to bail on one of their flights because they were afraid of damage to the aircraft frame. So by many, many measures, Melissa will go down as one of the strongest hurricanes in history.

NINA MOINI: Wow. Wow. It's hard to pivot from that, Paul, because that is just so tragic that that's happening, but we do want to talk about our forecast here at home. We had some rain. How much and is it going to be helping to ease some of the drought?

PAUL HUTTNER: They had an inch of rain in Northwest Minnesota up around Hallock and points in the Northwestern part of the state like 9/10 Thief River Falls, that area. That's on the edge of that growing drought zone, so that's going to help a little bit. Most of the area though only saw about a half an inch to an inch from North Central Minnesota down into the central part of the state and just a half an inch in the Western Twin Cities, little in the Central and Eastern Twin Cities. So that drought zone that's mainly in North Central Minnesota got some rain but probably not enough to ease it in terms of any categories. We'll get an updated drought report tomorrow, Nina.

NINA MOINI: And a lot of people curious about Friday evening, trick or treating, Halloween. What are you tracking?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, our forecast is looking pretty good. It's brighter out there today. It's sunnier across much of Minnesota. We're 52 in the Twin Cities now heading for 56 this afternoon.

Tomorrow and Friday, a mix of sun and some clouds, 51 tomorrow. Halloween 48 degrees for the high in the Twin Cities.

NINA MOINI: Not bad.

PAUL HUTTNER: Trick or treat temperatures-- yeah, just partly spooky this year because we had snow the last two years.

NINA MOINI: Right.

PAUL HUTTNER: Typically cool. We'll be in the low to mid 40s, not a lot of wind. So a coolish Halloween but not too bad. Really pretty seasonal for Minnesota this time of year.

NINA MOINI: And then next week, we're already into November. What are you tracking there?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah, it looks mild-ish the first few days of next week. We're probably back into the upper 50s, maybe hit 60 in Southern Minnesota. I don't see any huge cold fronts or big snowstorms on the weather maps just yet, Nina, but November 18th is the average date for our first inch of snow in the Twin Cities.

NINA MOINI: That's good to. And what is coming up this week on Climate Cast, Paul?

PAUL HUTTNER: Well, you know Minnesota's famous chef an-- Chef Andrew Zimmern. He's got a new cookbook out. It's called The Blue Food Cookbook. Talks about sustainable seafood. How can we enjoy our seafood and make it sustainable. That's tomorrow on Climate Cast on All Things Considered.

NINA MOINI: Thanks, Paul.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner.