Snowflakes Blanketed Many Areas of the Northern U.S. on Halloween

Posted: November 2, 2023 8:35 am

Forget about a White Christmas, it was a White Halloween for some parts of the Upper Midwest and the Northeast this year as an early-season snow event blanketed the region to close out the month of October. Here is a look back at what created this wintry wonderland on Halloween.

Snow and Bitter Cold Temperatures Disrupt Many Halloween Plans

An Alberta Clipper system delivered a blast of snow to the Midwest and Northeast this week, also ushering in air temperatures that felt more like December than the end of October. Alberta Clippers are not typically known for their high moisture content, instead relying on quickly-moving snow showers to provide accumulation.

This was the case this week as the clipper system created lake-effect snow as well as snow squalls. Many of the communities that got hit with the flakes recorded some degree of accumulation. For example, over 6 inches of snow was recorded in the northeastern corner of Minnesota and into northern Wisconsin late Monday and into Tuesday. This included 2.7 inches of snow at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The accumulation translated into some slippery sidewalks for trick-or-treaters across the Twin Cities.

Heading farther to the north, cities such as Grand Rapids, Michigan picked up accumulations that soared into the double digits. It was an especially snowy Halloween for the town of Cloverville, Michigan, recording 11.5 inches by the middle of the day on October 31.

Chicago escaped with lighter amounts of snow on Halloween. However, the warming effects of Lake Michigan this time of the year worked to amplify these snow showers and produce thundersnow, reducing visibility to less than a mile in the downtown area near the lake. The icy conditions lingered in the overnight hours, triggering a slippery morning commute across the Windy City on Wednesday morning.

The bands of snow moved to the east throughout the night Tuesday, reaching the Ohio Valley by early Wednesday. Cleveland was dealing with up to 3 inches of snow throughout the city by the time the sun came up. Areas to the northeast saw snowfall accumulations of over 7 inches, catching many residents off guard.

The town of Hannasville in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania came in with 10 inches of snow. Meanwhile, locations to the south and east of Lake Erie recorded snowfall amounts ranging between 3 and 5 inches. Upstate New York also picked up significant amounts of snow out of this weather maker, measuring up to 7 inches in the hardest hit areas of the Empire State.

The Upper Midwest and the Northeast were not the only parts of the U.S. to experience meaningful snow this year. Denver saw its first accumulating snow of the season over the weekend, just in time for the Denver Broncos to host rival Kansas City Chiefs in an AFC clash. The Mile High City reported 7.5 inches of snow by the time the storm pushed to the east and into the Plains states on Monday.

Early-Season Snowfall a Rare Event

A widespread early-season snowfall event of this magnitude is not a common occurrence. According to the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, 17.5% of the U.S. and Canada were blanketed in snow by Halloween, making it the snowiest October 31 on record since the agency began tracking these data points in 2012.

The second-snowiest Halloween happened in 2019 with 16.9% of this same region reporting snowfall cover. More snow moved in during the overnight hours that year, sending the percentage up to 17.9% on November 1.

This wintry precipitation paired with a mass of cold air that gripped a large portion of the northern U.S. The bone-chilling cold air came down from Canada, spilling over into parts of the southern U.S. as well. Temperature readings fell as much as 40 degrees below the norm for November 1 on Wednesday morning. In fact, almost 120 million Americans woke up to temperatures that registered at or below the freezing mark.

Warmer temperatures and drier conditions are on the horizon by the end of the week for the bulk of this region.

Did you find this content useful? Feel free to bookmark or to post to your timeline for reference later.

Recent Posts