Friday, October 31, 2008

The 1991 Holloween blizzard

Wow this was one mean storm that hit the area..Poor kids that did get out to trick and treat had to have winter coats and boots on...I had like 25 kids stop at the house that night..So the heavy snow really didn't keep them in.....Ok let me talk about this blizzard....Oct 32 through Nov 3 brought a period of heavy snow to the following areas.Central and Northern IA ,Southern,Central,Eastern,Northeastern MN,and parts of Western WI,along with all of Northwestern WI.The lowest pressure reading from this blizzard was 984 MBS.
First of around the 27 through the 29 we had a very strong cold front push through Northwest WI...This is one part to set the area up with record snowfall amount from Oct 31 through Nov 3...Some other players are the large ridge of high pressure that extended from Greenland down into the Southeastern States...We also had a large storm system over the Atlantic Ocean AKA the perfect storm...Thanks to this storm it put a blocking pattern on the weather systems from moving from West to East...We also had a low pressure that was centered over NE this low was trying to push East Northeast..Meanwhile a strong low pressure was forming over TX this system was pulled darn near North,do to the perfect storm and the ridge of high pressure to out East...The combination of said high and the perfect storm lead to copious amounts of moisture to ride North with the TX low pressure...With cold air already in place this was becoming a set up for a blizzard for the area...Snowfall amounts ranged from a mere 4 inches to as much as 37 inches..The higher amounts where found along the Western parts of the South shore of Lake Superior and the far Southern parts of the North shore of Lake Superior,as moisture of the lake also worked it's way into the storm system.Here at my house close to Rice Lake I recorded 24 inches of snow......As far as a weather forecaster's stand point this time frame had to be one of the best times to watch with so much going on..I will never forget it!.Though this blizzard was fun to watch grow and be part of,this blizzard also has a down side to it....The Halloween blizzard caused 100 millions dollars worth of damage,sadly this blizzard also claimed 22 people's life's..More than 100 people were injured through the time frame of Oct 31 through Nov 3