October Snow History
The forecast for the Twin Cities has a mention of snow over the next few days. How rare is measurable snow this early in the season? In recent years it has been uncommon to see measurable snow in October in the Twin Cities. The last time there was measurable snow in October in the Twin Cities was .2 (two tenths) of an inch on October 20 and .4 (four tenths) of an inch on October 21, 2002. The most snow for the month of October is (of course) the 1991 Halloween Blizzard with 8.2 inches, which all fell on October 31.
What is more unusual is having measurable snow fall in the first half of the month. This has happened only eight times in the last 60 years, with the most snow being 2.5 inches on October 10, 1977.
Dates of measurable snow in the Twin Cities from October 1-15 since 1948
Year Month Day Precip Tmax Tmin Tavg Snowfall Snowdepth 1959 10 8 0.32 56 32 44 0.3 0 1959 10 12 0.20 37 31 34 2.0 0 1966 10 15 1.24 42 33 38 0.2 0 1969 10 12 0.69 42 33 38 2.0 0 1969 10 13 0.08 41 34 38 0.4 1 1977 10 10 0.48 49 32 41 2.5 0 1977 10 11 0.06 43 33 38 0.5 0 1992 10 15 0.21 44 31 38 0.3 0The earliest measurable snow on record for the Twin Cities is .4 inches on September 24, 1985 which fell during the afternoon and surprised many people.
Statewide, there's been Octobers in recent years with significant snow, mostly confined to the northern half of the state. As recently as October 26, 2008 there was windswept snow with 3.3 inches near Dalton in Otter Tail County. On October 12-13, 2006 there was measurable snow over northeast Minnesota. A larger storm also hit northeast Minnesota on October 27-28, 2003. The largest October snowstorm in recent years that hit farther south was on October 20-21, 2002. This storm dropped eight to nine inches in a narrow band over central Minnesota with the heaviest total being 9 inches at Little Falls.