October sunset over a corn field in central Nebraska, (Brian Neben, Courtesy)
HASTINGS — Not surprisingly, weather conditions on Oct. 31 can vary dramatically from one year to the next in south central Nebraska.
Just in the past 30 years, high temperatures in Grand Island have ranged from 26 to 77 degrees, and lows have ranged from 13 to 54 degrees!
Temperatures: According to the entire period of record, the warmest Halloween featured 82 degrees in 1915, while the coldest low was 12 degrees in 1923. Only 27-of-129 Halloweens on record (21%) have featured high temperatures of 70 degrees plus (most recently 75 degrees in 2022). On the cold end of the thermometer, only 25-of-129 on record (19%) have seen low temperatures of 25 degrees-or-colder (most recently 14 degrees just last year).
In recent years, a somewhat unusual/interesting trend has developed: Halloween 2023 was the seventh in a row to feature a high temperature at least 19 degrees colder/warmer than the year before (and alternating between colder/warmer each time!).
Precipitation/Snowfall: As for precipitation, measurable daily amounts of 0.01 inches have been recorded on Halloween in 21-of-129 years…only 16% of the time. Measurable Halloween snow has been even rarer, with only four instances on record (although one of these was only seven years ago in 2017).
However, one snow event 33 years ago really stood out above the rest: the significant winter storm of 1991! Specifically in Grand Island, 8.8 inches of snow piled up on Oct. 31 alone, and a storm-total amount of 12.0 inches fell between Oct. 30-Nov. 1! The high temperature in Grand Island on Halloween 1991 was only 23 degrees (the coldest on record)!
Halloween 2023 Recap: Staying true to what has become an “eerie” recent trend, Halloween 2023 was the seventh in a row to feature a high temperature at least 19 degrees colder/warmer than the year before (and alternating between colder/warmer each time!).
More specifically, the afternoon high temperature on Halloween 2023 at Central Nebraska Regional Airport only reached 36 degrees, a whopping 39 degrees colder than Halloween 2022! The morning low temperature was seasonably frigid for sure, briefly dropping to 14 degrees, and actually tying for the third-coldest Halloween low on record!
On a positive note, it was at least a mostly sunny day, and following a breezy start with north-northwest winds generally sustained around 15 mph and gusting up to around 25 mph, the wind really died down by the late afternoon and early evening hours, making for chilly-but-tolerable trick-or-treat conditions.
