While Baby Boomers have the blizzards of the late 1960s and 1970s to draw upon for “Back when I was a kid…” stories, it is the October 31st, 1991 blizzard that has become the winter weather guide post for Gen X and beyond.
“The “Halloween Blizzard” is remembered by many as the storm that put an early end to trick- or -treating that year. For others, it was a storm that caused loss and property – and in some cases, loss of life.
Spawning from the atmospheric energy of an East Coast storm – theatmosphericeather system that set the stage for the movie “The Perfect Storm,”, the Halloween Blizzard was an early- season storm of unusual intensity. It walloped areas of the Upper Midwest with record snowfall totals, extreme cold and devastating winds.
Eastern South Dakota was hit hard by what officials at the National Weather Service Office deemed a “megastorm.” Snowfall rates of one to two inch per hour and winds of 30 to 50 mph - with gusts of up to 60 mph) - created blizzard conditions over multiple days. Sioux Falls broke two snowfall records with 11 inches on the ground by Nov. 2 – the earliest six -inch snowfall and most snow ever in October.
Areas in Minnesota were also hit with historic snowfall. Duluth sustained the highest snow total of the storm with 36.9 inches. Iowa and Nebraska saw a major ice storm with accumulations as high as two to three inches, downing trees and powerlines across each state.
South Dakota saw both major interstates closed. Trucker Claude Seville spent the night at the service station in Beresford.
“The visibility got so tough last night with the ice and snow that I couldn’t see,” he told the Argus Leader. “ I was trying to get to Sioux Falls but it got down to the point where I said, why should I try to kill myself to get another 30 miles?”
Bone- chilling cold was also reported with windchills in the minus 35 to minus 50 degree range. The Rapid City Journal reported that the extreme cold resulted in loss of calves in the Union Center area, and a rancher in New Underwood lost 40 head of cattle. The snow and bitter cold also hindered snow removal, and many schools in eastern South Dakota were still closed on Monday, Nov. 4.
By the end of the storm, the multi-state event killed 22 people and injured over 100 over an area of nine states. Until the Atlas Blizzard of 2013, it was the worst recorded early- winter storm in recent decades.
