October 22-31, 2003
Midwest Weekly Highlights - October 22-31, 2003
Shades of Winter, then Return to Autumn
The period of October 22 to 31 displayed a great deal of variability in weather condition due to its location in the storm track for most of the period. Precipitation totals exceeded half an inch in most of the eastern Midwest, including all of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois (Figure 1). Most of the drought stricken areas of the western and central Midwest received well below normal amounts of precipitation, especially Iowa (Figure 2). Some of the precipitation in the northern tier of the region consisted of snow, especially in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and the western part of the UP of Michigan (Figure 3). Most of this snow fell around the 27th as a low moved along the Canadian border, but there were smaller events at various time during the week. Temperatures were 4-8°F below normal to the north of a quasi-stationary boundary through the central Midwest, while some areas of the southern Midwest were somewhat above normal (Figure 4). At the end of the period, a very strong influx of warm air brought daily maximum temperatures above 80°F in the southern Midwest, and above 70°F in large parts of the eastern Midwest on October 31 (Figure 5). Drought intensified in Iowa and central Wisconsin, and D3 extreme drought status was expanded in these areas (Figure 6, National Drought Mitigation Center). Federal declarations imparting agricultural disaster status were issued for 62 counties in Minnesota and 7 counties in northern Iowa.
A Touch of Winter
The first moderately heavy widespread snow of the season occurred on October 27-28 in the Upper Midwest, affecting a wide swath of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin (Figure 7). Snowfall observations as high as 8.5 inches were observed, and Duluth set an all-time record for the 27th of 4 inches. The treacherous driving conditions resulted in dozens of accidents and one car accident fatality near Duluth, but the snow also greatly encouraged those hoping for good conditions for winter recreational activities. After two years of snow drought, this was one of the bigger storms that area had seen during the last three years. However, most of the snow did melt later in the day before a strong cold front cooled things down. The wind gusts behind the cold front reached 50 mph in several places in central Minnesota. To the south of the storm system that brought snow to the northern Midwest, a strong influx of warm and moist air entered the southern Midwest as mentioned above.
Solar Storms
A tremendous outbreak of sunspots occurred during the last 10 days of October, yielding several massive solar flare/coronal mass ejection events that brought wild aurora displays to all of the Midwest that was not cloud covered. The large sunspot to the south of the solar equator, sunspot 486 (Figure 8, NASA), was the source of one of the strongest flares in decades on October 29. The coronal mass ejection sent a large amount of high energy particles towards the earth (Figure 9, NASA). The energetic particles reached the earth early in the morning on the 30th, yielding tremendous aurora displays that were visible from space (Figure 10, USAF), as well as from the ground. The strength of this solar activity was surprising, coming as it did 3.5 years after the latest solar maximum. Communications and a few satellites were disrupted by the event, but no large power outages were noted.