Frosty Halloween; megastorm echoes

How about the Ann Bancroft or Will Steger polar explorer costume this Halloween? Or maybe the Edmund Fitzgerald?

We may not feel the gales of November Thursday, but this will go down as the one of the colder Halloweens in Minnesota history. Temperatures Thursday will hover in the 30s in most of Minnesota.

The good news? Thursday will be mostly dry across Minnesota with light winds.

Here’s more on Halloween climatology from the Minnesota DNR Climate Working Group.

Halloween is typically a time of crunchy leaves on the ground, a bit of chill in the air, and lots of candy.

High temperatures in the Twin Cities are generally in the 40s and 50s. It is more common for the daily high on Halloween to be in the 60s than in the 30s.

Seventies tend to be rare, with only eight Halloween high temperatures being 70 degrees or above or about 1 in 18 years. The warmest Halloween on record was 83 degrees in 1950, with one of the coldest one year later with a high of 30 in 1951.

The coldest Halloween maximum temperature was a bone-chilling 26 degrees back in 1873. The last 20 years have had some balmy Halloween afternoons, like the 71 degree high in 2000.

We've had some chilly ones as well, like in 2017, when the temperature never rose above 35 degrees at MSP. The area has not seen a Halloween washout, with measurable precipitation during the evening, since 1997.

White Halloween south and east

Looking for snow this Halloween? You’ll only have to drive a few hours southeast. A band of 3 to 6 inches will fall from eastern Iowa through northern Illinois into Wisconsin. Travel in these zones will be more trick than treat.

Here’s the view from the Chicago National Weather Service.

And here’s the picture across southern Wisconsin from the National Weather Service Milwaukee.

November chill persists

The temperature maps keep coming up 30s for most of Minnesota through next week. The Twin Cities may recover into the 40s for a couple of days early next week.

Halloween megastorm echoes

I’ve written many times about how the Halloween megastorm was one of the most memorable weather days in Minnesota. It still stands as one of the biggest days of my weather career.

I am actually surprised that this storm still stands as the biggest snowfall on record for much of Minnesota including the Twin Cities.

Here’s the megastorm wrap from the Minnesota DNR Climate Working Group.

Boo!