Cold November Stretch

Looks like we’re going to end up with the 2nd longest stretch below freezing recorded for November at 12 days. This is only behind the 15 days in November 1880.

The winter of 1880-81 was historic and was called the Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. There was 10 to 11 feet of snow (not just drifts) in South Dakota. Trains could not get through for months.

I estimate there was possibly over 100 inches of snow here in the Twin Cities based on the precipitation and temperatures (no snow records kept then) which would surpass the existing top snow year of 1983-84 when we had 98.6 inches. There might’ve been more than 130 ski days and maybe more than the existing record of 132 ski-days in 1950-51.

This November is also on pace to become a top ten cold November which bodes well for the upcoming ski season. The average for the existing top cold Novembers is 101 ski days with 8 of the 10 winters above 100 ski days. This is similar to the probability for a 100 ski day winter last year (112 natural snow ski days) when we had 9 inches of snow on the ground at Christmas.

Hopefully, we won’t get the cold like last year with 50 days with below zero readings. As cold as last winter was (the coldest in about 30 years, about the 12th coldest on record depending on how you measure it), it pales against some of the historical cold winters. The winter of 1935-36 also had 50 days with below zero readings (36 consecutive), 10 days with -20, 1 day at -34 (-23F last year) and 15 days with daytime highs below zero (4 last winter) including 7 days with a high of -10F or colder. There was also 1874-75 with 19 days of -20F or colder and 5 days with -30F readings and 60 days with below zero temperatures.