Record warmth possible on Tuesday; snow may be in store for Halloween

It will feel more like summer beach weather as opposed to late October in the metro area on Tuesday with enough warmth to possibly break a high temperature record that has stood for more than a century.

On Monday, the Twin Cities tied a high temperature mark for Oct. 28 with a 75-degree reading at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the official weather observation in the Twin Cities. Another burst of heat on tap for Tuesday could push the metro into the record books for a second straight day with temperatures flirting with 80 degrees, said Nick Carletta, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen.

The mark to beat Tuesday is 78 degrees, which was set in 1922, according to the Minnesota Climatology Office. Record or not, Tuesday will serve up possibly one last picnic lunch for the season.

By Wednesday, temperatures will begin to tumble as showers move in. And by Halloween night on Thursday it will be cold enough that snow could mix in with the precipitation, Carletta said.

For anybody planning to go outdoors for trick-or-treating, “it will not be a nice night,” Carletta said.

Last Halloween was the second snowiest on record in the Twin Cities with 1.8 inches of snow falling on Oct. 31. That was far short of the biggest Halloween blizzard on record when 8.2 inches piled up in 1991. That storm continued for two more days and dumped 28.4 inches of snow in the metro. Duluth recorded 36.9 inches and more than 20 inches fell at numerous locations from the metro to the Arrowhead region, Minnesota Climatology Office records show.

Thursday’s snow won’t be anything quite as menacing, but there could be slushy accumulations on lawns and fields in central and northern Minnesota, Carletta said. For most people, however, anything that falls will be more of a reminder that “winter is coming,” he said.

Temperatures will rebound into the 50s by the weekend and will likely stay above normal through the first part of November. The average high for Nov. 1 is 50 degrees, falling to 42 degrees by Nov. 15.