The Great Halloween Blizzard of 1991

By Lisa Kroulik © October 21, 2011

If you live in Minnesota and you are more than 20 years old, chances are you remember exactly what you did – or more precisely, didn’t do—on Halloween day in 1991. On that day, the snow started falling and didn’t stop until sometime three days later. We had never seen so much snow so early in the year, and the Great Halloween Blizzard of 20 years ago remains something that us natives still revere with a sense of awe. It strikes at the heart of our Midwestern pride to have witnessed 29 inches of non-stop snow and lived to tell about it. The Minnesota Climatology Working Group sums it up this way:

Oct. 31- Nov. 3, 1991 Halloween Blizzard: Over 28 inches at MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport), nearly 37 inches at Duluth. Nasty wind chill conditions, deep snow drifts and harsh on wildlife, many roads closed for days. It was perhaps one of the largest and longest lasting blizzards in state history.

I was in my early twenties, and had not watched the TV weather report before attempting to head out the door that morning for my college classes. You younger people may not remember a time before personal computers, the Internet and phones with weather apps, but suffice to say watching the news or reading the newspaper was the only way I would have know what had hit our great state. My roommate asked me what I was doing and I responded that I was going to class. An older woman who liked to tell it like it is, she laughed and said, “I don’t think so.” She was right. Not only did I not go to class, I didn’t leave my apartment for the next two days.

Then there were the stories of people leaving shovels in their yards and running for cover. Purportedly, anything left outside on the last day of October in 1991 was not seen again until the spring of 1992.

The storm that pounded Minnesota soon received the label of the Halloween Nor'easter of 1991 because it began on the east coast over the Atlantic Ocean. Meteorologists also called it “The Perfect Storm” due to the series of events leading up to it. Days before it became the infamous Halloween blizzard, the storm was Hurricane Grace. While Grace was wreaking havoc on the east, a high-pressure system over Canada that was northwest of the hurricane was busily forming.

Eventually, the two severe weather patterns merged, and the result was the 29- inch snowstorm that remains the largest pounding of snow that Minnesota has ever seen at one time. Duluth, which is approximately 150 miles north of Minneapolis/St. Paul, saw up to 37 inches of snow by the time the last flake had fallen.

The east coast did not fare so well either. The storm that started out as a hurricane caused widespread damage up and down the coast, with the most notable among it being the destructive waves at the Kennebunkport, Maine home of President George H.W. Bush.

We are no strangers to severe weather around here, but as cold and as snowy as it can get in Minnesota, there is just something off-putting about a blizzard that broke the hearts of little trick-or-treaters all across the state. Pumpkins and snow are not something we normally see at the same time here, and I’m sure I speak for millions of my state-mates when I say that it is something we hope to never see again. Halloween will be here soon, and I for one would rather give candy to the costumed visitors at my door that look at six-foot high snowdrifts.