Halloween revisited

Wait a few days! That could have been the morning weather headline on Oct. 29, 1991. The mercury topped out at 66 degrees for a delightful late autumn day.

Forecasters were nervously eyeing computer models that projected the development of a snowstorm for the upper Midwest. I was mulling over the model output from the Indianapolis NWS office, concerned that the Twin Cities and a large portion of the state would be buried under several inches of snow in a couple of days. I would be arriving in Minneapolis-St. Paul to become the chief meteorologist for NOAA in early December, so I was anxious about how this forecast would herald my arrival.

Without trying to be a pain, I phoned the forecasting staff in the Twin Cities to consult with the experts on forecasting snow accumulations. Hey, it was just 66 on the 29th; the ground was still warm so some of the snow will melt as it falls! You know the rest of the story.

Lesson learned. Melting snow cools the soil quickly. Once the ground is covered the snow continued to pile up. By Nov. 2, more than two feet of snow was documented for the record books. On Nov. 4, the low temperature was four below zero.

While the air is crisp and the wind is brisk there will be no smack of snowflakes for trick or treaters!