A chilly and breezy Halloween this year; recap of the 1991 Halloween blizzard

There’s nothing creepy or scary about today’s weather.

Halloween 2021 will feature highs in the 40s across most of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Our average Twin Cities high temp is 50 degrees on Oct. 31 so we’ll be a bit cooler than normal. It’ll be breezy across Minnesota and western Wisconsin, with afternoon wind gusts of 20-28 mph.

Far northern Minnesota and parts of northwestern Wisconsin could see a passing rain or snow shower.

Trick or treat temps

Temps at 7 p.m. Sunday are expected to be in the 30s in many areas, and close to 40 degrees from the Twin Cities into southeastern Minnesota:

Here are Sunday evening temperature and wind forecasts for several locations, from the NWS:

Wind gusts will be a bit higher than the sustained winds in the forecast.

The Duluth NWS office has posted this forecast of Halloween evening weather:

You can hear updated weather information for Minnesota and western Wisconsin on the Minnesota Public Radio News network, and you can see updated weather info on the MPR News live weather blog.

30th anniversary of the Halloween blizzard

You might have heard about the 1991 Halloween blizzard. It’s hard to avoid hearing about that epic storm, as MPR’s Nancy Yang recently described.

The Minnesota State Climatology Office has posted a detailed recap of the storm, which began on October 31, 1991 and lasted into the first few days of November. According to the Climatology Office:

As the afternoon faded into evening a surreal scene unfolded with kids attempting to trick-or-treat wearing coats and boots and pumpkins becoming covered with a snowy blanket. The snow piled up steadily, and without much wind initially. By the end of Halloween, 8.2 inches of snow had accumulated at the Twin Cities International Airport, the most on record for the entire month of October (at the time; October 2020 broke the record).

The storm was just beginning. In fact, it may be remembered (proudly) as the Halloween Blizzard, but the worst of the storm, including the characteristics that made it a true blizzard, held off until November 1st.

By the morning of November 1st, the parent low-pressure area had intensified, and moved to southeast Iowa, with the snow reaching peak intensity in southern Minnesota and the Twin Cities between 4 Am and 9 AM, with over a foot on the ground before sunrise and a foot-and-half measured around 8 AM. The snow led to a flurry of cancellations. 900 schools and businesses closed in Minnesota including 3M, Dayton's, Honeywell and the Carlson Companies. Meanwhile in southern Minnesota and in Iowa, where the precipitation remained as rain, one to three inches of ice formed on surfaces. This was the costliest ice storm in Iowa's history through 1991. Snow removal became difficult as the snow had started falling on warm pavement, which melted at first and then froze into icy ruts that proved to be very difficult to remove. An additional 18.5 inches fell on November 1 at the Twin Cities International Airport, and snow blowers in the metro area quickly sold out.

The storm became a blizzard officially during the afternoon of November 1, as the low pressure center headed towards Lake Superior and intense winds gusting as high as 64 mph at Willmar spread across the state, whipping the snow into enormous drifts and dropping visibility to near zero. The National weather Service issued Blizzard Warnings for much of southern, central, and eastern Minnesota (including the Twin Cities), as winds increased and additional waves of accumulating snow moved in. Even though most of the accumulating snow had ended in the Twin Cities during the late evening of November 1st, it reached extreme intensity in the Arrowhead region and Duluth during that same time, as Lake Superior, the terrain, and bouts of thundersnow combined to produce some of the highest snowfall rates of the storm.

By November 2nd, the snow was winding down, but the storm's fierce winds ushered in a reinforcing push of cold air, forcing temperatures to fall into and through the teens across much of the state during the day. Cold air kept filtering in the proceeding days,  with a low of -3 F at the Twin Cities Airport on November 4, the earliest below-zero low on record, back to 1872.

Duluth wound up with 36.9 inches of snow from this storm, establishing a record as the largest single snowstorm total for Minnesota, until 46.5 inches fell from January 6-8, 1994 near Finland in Cook County. The storm total in the Twin Cities (at MSP) was 28.4 inches, establishing a single-storm snowfall record for that station.

Other final accumulations in Minnesota, many of which set storm-total records, included: 36 inches at Two Harbors; 32 inches at Brimson; 30 inches at Gunflint Lake and Eveleth; 25 inches at Lutsen, Cambridge, and Chaska; 21.8 inches at Hibbing; 20 inches at Young America, Litchfield, and Waseca; 17.4 inches at St. John's in Collegeville; and 17.3 inches at International Falls.  

Here’s the snowfall map from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3 of 1991:

The daily snow totals in the Twin Cities were 8.2 inches on Oct. 31, 18.5 inches on Nov. 1, then 1.1 inch on Nov. 2 and 0.6 of an inch on Nov. 3 of 1991, for a storm total of 28.4 inches.

A recap of the blizzard, compiled by the Duluth NWS office, can be found here.

Chilly Monday

Monday highs will be in the 30s north, with 40s south:

Wind gusts to 20 mph are possible Monday afternoon. Parts of northern Minnesota could see a few scattered light snow showers on Monday.

Cool temps linger

Twin Cities metro area highs are projected to be around 40 Tuesday and Wednesday, then lower 40s Thursday and mid 40s on Friday. It still looks like a fairly dry week. We could see some highs in the 50s next weekend.

Fall color update

The latest fall color report from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources shows fall colors past peak in the dark-red shaded areas of Minnesota:

The percentage of changeover to fall colors is between 75 percent and 100 percent in the medium-red shaded areas of southeastern Minnesota.

Keep in mind that all deciduous trees are included in the fall color report, not just maples.

I’m still seeing small pockets of excellent fall color in parts of the Twin Cities:

Wisconsin fall color info can be found here.

Programming note

You can hear my live weather updates on MPR News at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 4:39 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.