I woke up two days ago to the first snowfall of the year, along with some rain and sleet. There was no accumulation, but that is probably not far away.
I've had several people ask me if that is early. I tell them that historically, we are close to the anniversaries of some of the biggest winter storms in Minnesota state history.
No one who lived through the Halloween Blizzard of 1991, and had to clean up afterward, will forget it. The autumn had been a mild one. Temperatures on October 28th and 29th were in the sixties. In the Twin Cities, only three Minnesota Department of Transportation plows had their blades attached. The leaves were still on many driveways and lawns.
On Halloween, the sleet and freezing rain started in the morning. By early afternoon, the precipitation had changed to snow. The snow came down hard enough to close down the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, and pull all of the MTA buses off the roads for the first time in a decade.
I remember trying to remove the snow from our driveway. The snow was so heavy that the snow came out of the auger of the snowblower, and sank right back down into the machine. We had to clear the snow in layers to get it off of the driveway. The plows cleared the roads within a few days, but the frozen rain and sleet under the snow did not really melt until the next spring.
There was 8.2 inches of snow in the Twin Cities on October 31st and 18.5 inches on November 1st. Overall, there was 28.5 inches that fell in the Twin Cities between October 31st through November 3rd. Duluth had 37 inches of snow, and the Gunflint Trail had about 4 feet of snow, according to the locals. The temperature fell to -3 Fahrenheit on November 4th in the Twin Cities, and the wind chill fell to -50 Fahrenheit in greater Minnesota.
The source for many of the vital statistics of the storm came from Storms! by Martin Keller and Sheri O'Meara. There is an accompanying book called Storms 2 by Sheri O'Meara that also has some great Minnesota storm information as well.
Current Weather: Rain and Snow with near freezing temperatures.
Forecast: The rain and snow will be changing to all rain this afternoon, back to rain and snow this evening, and to all snow late at night. 3 - 5 inches of snow accumulation possible. Temperatures falling to the lower twenties and possibly upper teens over the next few days. Gale Warning on Lake Superior today and tomorrow.
