GRAND ISLAND — 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 on record featured 82 degrees in 1915, while the coldest low was 12 degrees in 1923.
Only 27-of-128 Halloweens on record (21 percent) have featured high temperatures of 70 degrees or higher (most recently 75 degrees just last year). On the cold end of the thermometer, only 24-of-128 on record (19 percent) have seen low temperatures of 25 degrees-or-colder (most recently 13 degrees in 2019).
Precipitation/Snowfall: As for precipitation, measurable daily amounts of 0.01 inch have been recorded on Halloween in 21-of-127 years…only 16 percent of the time. Measurable snow has been even rarer, with only four instances on record (although one of these was only six years ago in 2017).
However, one snow event 32 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.
2022 Halloween Recap: In what has recently become an uncanny trend, Halloween 2022 marked the sixth-straight Halloween that Grand Island’s weather differed sharply from the previous year, especially temperature-wise, with alternating chilly versus mild days.
Following a chilly/gloomy Halloween in 2021, sure enough, Halloween 2022 was just the opposite, incredibly mild and pleasant. The afternoon high of 75 degrees at Central Nebraska Regional Airport actually tied for the ninth warmest on record, out of 128, after the day started with a very “normal” low of 34 degrees.
Not only was it a very warm afternoon, but it was also sun-filled, and winds were seasonably-light, only 5-15 mph out of the south-southwest.
