Minnesota Was Hit By Legendary Blizzard 30 Years Ago

(KNSI) — It’s hard to get past Halloween in Minnesota without someone mentioning the Halloween blizzard of 1991.

Thirty years ago this year, Minnesota was hammered by the legendary snowstorm. Minnesota State Climatologist Pete Boulay was a meteorology student at St. Cloud State University when the blizzard came through and said it wasn’t until just before the storm hit did forecasters know what was coming.

“Everybody knew from the meteorology students at St. Cloud State right up to the National Weather Service that a big storm was coming. But at the time, the real main question was how much rain were we going to get from this storm? We knew it would be a heavy storm. As it progressed and got closer, everybody began to realize this is going to be a snowstorm.”

He said it started snowing in St. Cloud around noon and it didn’t stop. By the time it was all said and done, the state was buried under one to three feet of snow.

“This storm dropped a swath of really heavy snow from south central Minnesota through the Twin Cities and also St. Cloud right up through Duluth. So, St. Cloud wound up with 13.2 inches, and of course, Duluth wound up with much more. They got 36.9 inches and that was the state record snowfall for a single snowstorm.” The twin cities wound up with 28.4 inches and that still stands as the biggest snowstorm on record for that area.

Duluth’s state record was eclipsed in 1994 when Wolf Ridge along the North Shore was socked with 46.5 inches of snow from a single storm.

While some parents didn’t take their kids out trick-or-treating that night, the evening was epic for those who did.

“The kids that did go out for trick-or-treating did come home with quite a haul because there was a lot of candy to be dished out and not a lot of kids to pick up that candy. So, if you’re a hardy Minnesotan and you got a lot of candy.”

This year’s Halloween forecast calls for mostly clear skies and temperatures in the 30s and even getting below freezing, but no snow.

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