Halloween storm of 1991 brought the Northland to a standstill

By Jana Hollingsworth jhollingsworth@duluthnews.com

It’s the storm that Northland residents still talk about today, the one that all other storms are measured against.

If you experienced the Halloween megastorm of 1991, you have a story. It began as rain during trickor-treating hours on Oct. 31, quickly turning to a freezing rain. That turned to snow — mountains of it — and three days later, Duluth struggled to dig out of more than 36 inches of snow. At times, the snow fell at a rate of two inches per hour, and came with thunder and lightning. Winds gusted to 40 miles per hour and created huge snowdrifts and zero visibility.

The snowstorm affected nearly everyone’s lives. Residents couldn’t get to work, and spent hours digging out vehicles or even digging out of their front doors. Cars were abandoned in streets. People snowshoed or skied to get groceries and diapers. Schools and businesses closed. Some lost electricity and some streets were impassable for days, except to snowmobiles and emergency vehicles trying to get people to a hospital.

Duluthian Barb Meyer went into labor during the height of the storm. A police car, fire truck, snowplow, ambulance and sanding truck all responded to her 911 call. No sirens were needed because there was no other traffic — and her doctor reached the hospital on skis.

Debbie O’Connor’s Saturday wedding was canceled, but her road was plowed out thanks to a nearby emergency, and on Sunday there was a ceremony at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. Their nearly 200 guests made it to the impromptu event, and church members helped out by preparing sandwiches.

When the snow stopped, neighbors emerged to help each other, swap stories and marvel at the wonder.

The storm was unique because it intensified so quickly, said Carol Christenson, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth.

“We don’t see that very often,” she said of the rapidly deepening storm, calling it “bomb cyclogenesis.”

According to the Weather Service, it all began with a strong Arctic cold front that surged south through the central United States in the days prior to the megastorm. The front mixed with warm air in Texas, causing a steep drop in temperatures.

A low pressure system formed in Texas, and took an unusual path almost straight north. It was extremely slow-moving because it was strong at the surface and well into the atmosphere, Christenson said — and because of that, the south winds ahead of the system lasted a very long time. Those winds brought large amounts of Gulf of Mexico moisture northward, which helped increase the snowfall.

There is a connection to a more famous storm, which began a couple of days before the megastorm. The “Perfect Storm,” so named in the Sebastian Junger book and subsequent film of George Clooney fame, acted as an atmospheric block on the East Coast, so the Halloween megastorm couldn’t track from west to east, according to the Weather Channel. That was what led the low pressure system north, where it gained strength just in time to drop maximum snow on the Northland.

While Duluth saw about 36 inches of snow, even more snow — 45 inches — was dumped on Superior. More than 20 inches of snow covered most of the northwest quarter of Wisconsin and the eastern half of Minnesota. Following the storm, temperatures in the area were abnormally cold for that time of year. The region experienced mild 40s and 50s prior to the megastorm, and sunk to single-digits and teens after.

“The snow never really melted all the way,” Christenson said, lengthening the typical season of snow.

There is no reason the region couldn’t experience another megastorm. All it takes is a strong and deep low-pressure system with very cold air to the north and strong warm air to the south, Christenson said. The last time the area came close was a snowstorm in March 2007.

Today, meteorologists have more data and better weather models that run faster and more often. It’s much easier to predict what’s coming, Christenson said, and with the internet and other technology, more people are aware and can prepare.

With only radio, television and your own eyes to check the weather back in 1991, “it was a very different time,” she said. u d d d d d d d d d d d