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Halloween Treat & A Past Trick!

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Good Saturday and Happy Halloween bloggers!  After a blustery Friday across the region we are in store for a nice treat this weekend.  The first thing you should notice today is skies will be mostly sunny.  The sun should rule not only today, but also on Sunday.  The second big change for today will be the wind, or lack of compared to Friday.  Winds should be in the neighborhood of 5-15 mph out of the west and ease to 5 mph for trick-or-treaters late this afternoon and evening.

Highs today should top out in the 50s, which is pretty close to average.  Below are the forecast temperatures from the RUC for around 4 p.m. today.

After a nice Halloween, don't forget to set your clocks back one hour before heading to bed tonight.  This is also a great time to check the batteries on your home's smoke detectors. 

Halloween each year brings out the ghost and goblins, but for me it brings out memories of hands down the worst winter storm I've ever experience...the 1991 Halloween Bizzard.  I lived in southwest Minnesota and an early afternoon rain quickly turned to snow.  By 4-5 p.m. 3-4" of snow was on the ground as trick-or-treaters ventured out.  The snow continued for the better part of 3 days with very strong winds and much colder air arriving for the second half of the storm.  The snow was tough to measure since it was blown around, but I measured 18-20" where we lived.  If memory serves me right Halloween that year was on a Thursday or Friday and due to the strong winds and huge drifts everything was shut down, meaning we were still out of school on Monday!

Below is the snow accumulation map from that storm, which still holds many of the state's all-time single storm snow records.  One of those records is 36.9" of snow in Duluth from this storm, Minnesota's all-time record for a single storm.

As the storm departed it drew in record smashing cold temperatures that lingered for a week or more across the nation's mid-section.  While Kansas City escaped the snow, it couldn't elude the cold.  Looking at record lows for Kansas City from November 1-8, 7 of those records were set in 1991.  Here is a look at the brutal stretch of record cold from 1991 at KCI Airport(no record low broken on Nov. 5).

November

1   20°

2   12°

3   10°

4   7°

6   16°

7   7°

8   1°

 

That storm occurred almost 20 years ago, but is still the most memorable winter storm I've ever experienced!

Have a happy and safe Halloween and thank you for stopping by the Action Weather Blog!

Jeremy

Published Saturday, October 31, 2009 6:48 AM by Jeremy WxPlus

Comments

 

juba said:

1 degree one november 8th?!?!? Wow, I'm glad I didn't live here for that storm. Happy hallowe'en everybody and be sure to keep your pets inside today.
October 31, 2009 8:01 AM
 

kcwxguy said:

Good piece, Jeremy.  Back then you would have been around junior high years.  Must have been a welcomed snow day!  Speaking of which, I believe you had another birthday in October [if I am not mistaken].  Happy belated.

When this storm happened in '91, did you know then or prior that you wanted to be a meteorologist?

***************

1991 was a good year...the Twins won the World Series...I still liked snow...and started 'high school' which was 7th grade in my small town.

Jeremy
October 31, 2009 10:12 AM
 

f00dl3 said:

What happened to our Indian Summer? 06z GFS much colder (and more in line w/ the LRC IMHO). Wonder if the 12z run will keep up the cooling trend, or if it will put us back in an Indian Summer? Next week should be mild but a transition week like the last week of SEPT if we are in a 37 day cycle... with a strong cold front passing through next weekend.
October 31, 2009 10:50 AM
 

kcwxguy said:

f00dl3 - the Euro has a much more meridional flow in that timespan opposed to the operational GFS.  

This time of year is the worst for long range models.  They really struggle until the flow gets a bit more amplified.

Look at what the CPC has.  Not sure I fully agree with this...

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/814temp.new.gif

Looking at some of the data that the CPC considers, there seems to be quite a bit of variance right now long range.  Looking at their discussion, it seems they are weighing nearly all of their forecast on the GFS, thus what you see in their forecast.

I am not going with the GFS right now.  I expect to see a bit more change in the upcoming runs.
October 31, 2009 11:24 AM
 

mamaof3girls said:

I am not sure what the average rainfall amount is for October but mine was 6.54", not to impressive but a nice amount I think. Hope you get to take your girls trick or treating tonight Jeremy. What are your girls going to be? I have Aerial Mermaid, Witch and a Hannah Montana...:) Have a great weekend.
Monica
Pleasanton, KS
October 31, 2009 11:38 AM
 

kcwxguy said:

Monica - you were a couple inches above normal.
October 31, 2009 12:15 PM
 

Nick Rau said:

Been a long week for me, death in the family, so have not commented in a while.
quite the impressive storm that we just finished up, the wind yesterday with the small convective showers was neat.  As for the "zonal" flow for next week, it will be interesting to watch, one thing that I am noticing is even though we are progged to go into the zonal flow "with a slight NW component" is that the main thrust of the jet is not forecast to plow into central Canada and wipe the cold air out up there, so the cold air does not seem to go too far away, it just gets held up there, along with a polar vortex way up above central Canada in the arctic which seems to want to play defense for the cold air holding it in place. So the main thing to watch will be how long will the zonal flow last( as zonal flows are unstable by nature) and where does the jet buckle when it does. By the way these thoughts are based on what I have seen on the GFS during the lastest runs that I have looked over.

*****************

Sorry to hear about your loss Nick.  Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your weekend.

Jeremy

October 31, 2009 1:58 PM
 

Nick Rau said:

Thank you Jeremy.
I can't even fathom what that kind of storm was like! That was also kind of a "sister" storm of the "Perfect storm occurring at that same time off of New England" I guess another weather "station" decided to show a "George Clooney" movie for the anniversary of that storm ;).

***********************

I thought they were suppose to be the WEATHER channel.  This is headed the same direction MTV went over a decade ago.  But then again the object is to make money in this business...

October 31, 2009 2:53 PM
 

Andrew_Stafford said:

Nick,

I watch it in on TWC last night, and they are having movies every friday night!!
October 31, 2009 4:00 PM
 

kcwxguy said:

Jeremy - MTV soured more than a decade ago...lol.  As NBC bought out the Weather Channel, is it any surprise that it would go that path?  I want to see Al Roker host the first weather reality show.  No, wait...Discovery Channel has already beat them out of the gate.

Sigh.

Perhaps some kind of "Job Swap" would be cool between Cantori and local affiliates.  

Cantori can do the 6PM and send the affiliates into a hurricane or devastating weather event.  The more I think about it...there is some entertainment value potential in Reality Weather

Puleeze.
October 31, 2009 5:33 PM
 

sedsinkc said:

Jeremy,
I lived and worked in Plano, Texas during that Halloween 1991 storm and its aftermath and I remember we started to get some wet snow flakes mixed with cold rain in Plano while I was at work.  It's highly unusual to see snow around Dallas that early in the season.  Being a weather nut, I left work in the middle of the day and drove north from Plano to Sherman, near the Red River, and up there it was snowing heavily and there might have been an inch or two of wet snow on the grassy surfaces.  After the snow we had some very hard freezes for so early in the season.  I'm not sure if it was the primary low that spawned the Minnesota blizzard that gave us the snow in Texas, or if it was a secondary low that followed that first low and followed a more southerly track, but it was all part of that same intense upper level trough.
October 31, 2009 6:16 PM
 

sedsinkc said:

Maybe the Weather Channel will spawn a spinoff station called Weather Channel Classic that will focus on providing weather data and forecasts and leave the schtick and shows and movies to the parent Weather Channel???
October 31, 2009 6:19 PM
 

sedsinkc said:

After some research I learned that the record lows for November 2-5 at the official Dallas-Fort Worth weather station at DFW Airport were all set in 1991 and ranged from 25 to 28 degrees.
October 31, 2009 6:34 PM
 

NicoleWasHere said:

So which one of you went out and got me buckets and buckets of candy, this Halloween?  ;)

*********************

I brought a bunch of candy to the station this evening, but I don't deliver...sorry:)

Jeremy

October 31, 2009 7:24 PM
 

Andrew_Stafford said:

I love the weather channel for the shows,and stuff like that!!!
October 31, 2009 9:31 PM
 

WxGod said:

Next thing you know, The Weather Channel is going to be airing weather casts from years ago to save money. Nobody can beat "Retro-Cast"
November 1, 2009 1:38 AM
 

Nick Rau said:

Well this is kind of a late response, but yes I too am dissapointed with the way TWC has trended, I mean yes some of their programming is neat, but it is falling away from the original idea... a 24 hour weather cast. I miss TWC from the ninties I mean the forecasts are nothing like Gary and team with this blog, but it was nice to have WEATHER not entertainment at all hours of the day. Well maybe they will follow MTV by coming out with a "TWC 2" Channel and put all of their entertainment on that and put the main channel back to where it should be... yea it's not going to happen, but hey think about it instead of a movie every Friday night, why don't they take a special hour or two to have mets try to give their thoughts on say the trend they think the weather will undergo over the next 2 weeks or so, you know differing opinions, looking at different models ect. with obviously a disclaimer at the start of the special segment to let the laymen viewer know that it may not be the actual forecast per say but just some different ideas on the mid term weather situation.  It wouldn't be Gary and the LRC per say(maybe down the line;)) but it would be something respectable that would give me a reason to stop by the channel and listen to what they have to say every once and awhile other than using their radar when I first crawl out of bed in the morning( the last good use of that channel.  Well kind of a long rant about TWC, but I guess I just feel that there is/was so much potential for that kind of cable channel, but then again with the internet,blogs ect. the whole medium is going through a shift, but that is a can of worms I will stay out of;)
November 1, 2009 3:22 AM
 

ChicagoExPat said:

I don't think anything can beat Brett Anthony's idea from awhile back..."Dancing With the Meteorologists"...Brett cracks me up.
November 1, 2009 6:45 AM
 

ChicagoExPat said:

Nick, that was a good rant about TWC, and I agree about bringing it back to the way it was in the 90s. In Chicago, we had local weather "on the 8's" -- period. They didn't have all those bubbleheaded script readers.

And WxGod -- I LOVE the "retrocast" idea!! LOL!
November 1, 2009 6:48 AM
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