October marks the start of the cold season for New England and likewise behaves a lot like springtime when it comes to snowfall. That is to say multiple factors need to line up to bring the region a widespread snowstorm. That is exactly what happened on Halloween weekend 2011, which stands among the top when it comes to early (and late) season snow. This snowstorm basically canceled Halloween as it crippled the region for days.
On Friday, October 28th, 2011, a cold front cleared the northeast, ushering in a polar air mass into New England. At the same time, an area of low pressure formed around Louisiana. This low absorbed the remnants of Hurricane Rina, which provided additional moisture to an already moisture-rich Gulf Coast system. This would allow for heavy precipitation rates as the storm moved up the east coast.
Surface weather map from October 28th, 2011 showing the aforementioned cold front and surface low over Louisiana:
The Gulf Coast storm moved into the southeast before skirting up the east coast as a nor'easter. The storm quickly strengthened as it moved up the coast. By the time it reached New England overnight from October 29th to the 30th, the central pressure had dropped to 975mb, indicating a strong storm. The storm's pressure sat at 993mb off the New Jersey coast, a testament to how quickly the storm strengthened. With a fresh polar air mass over New England, it allowed widespread snowfall across New England, with a swath of extremely heavy snow in the interior.
Surface weather map from October 30th, 2011 showing the now strong nor'easter in the Gulf of Maine:
Prior to the storm's arrival, winter storm watches and warnings were issued with the Weather Prediction Center (which was known as the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center until 2013) forecasting up to 10 inches for portions of New England. In the first storm summary for this storm, the center wrote:
"Chances are increasing for a rare October winter storm for the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern states tonight and Saturday...the heaviest snowfall amounts of 8 to 10 inches are forecast to fall in a band from extreme northern Maryland northeastward through northern New Jersey and into western Massachusetts."
There are a lot of factors that work against major snowstorms this early in the season, so a prediction of nearly a foot at lower elevations already indicated a formidable storm. What ended up falling was nothing short of unprecedented for October. Overnight from October 29th to the 30th, extreme snowfall rates led to a large portion of New England seeing at least a foot of snow, with a swath of 20-30+ inches. The highest snowfall total in New England was 31" in Plainfield, Massachusetts.
Being late October, temperatures were marginal with this storm, which led to the snow being the wet and sticky variety. Once you get six inches of this type of snow, problems can begin to occur with sagging branches. Getting feet of this type of snow can lead to impacts more akin to a bad ice storm with broken branches, trees and power lines.
Add on the fact that it was still October and plenty of trees still had their leaves, especially in the hard hit southern New England, and one of the most significant power outages in New England history would unfold during this storm. In total, just over 1.8 million customers across New England lost power.
Connecticut was by far the hardest hit state for outages. Around 830,000 lost power in the state alone. This broke the state's outage record, which had just been set a couple months earlier when Tropical Storm Irene made landfall. Outages in some areas lasted for weeks, with the last customers being restored on November 9th. The state's electricity provider Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) faced heavy scrutiny for the response to this storm after facing similar criticism during Irene's aftermath.
The company's Chief Operating Officer resigned weeks after the storm. An investigation into the company's response was launched after the event. The investigation found that the company was not prepared for a storm of this magnitude. The company's worst case scenario that they planned for was up to 100,000 outages, eight times less than the actual amount. The company also did not call in out of state help until after the storm. CL&P eventually merged with NSTAR, which is now known as Eversource.
Five of New England's six states experienced a multi-day outage. Other statewide power outage numbers are as follows: Massachusetts 700,000; New Hampshire 315,000; Maine 160,000; Rhode Island 20,000; Vermont 7,500. Over one million customers in New England remained without power on Halloween.
With the storm coming right before Halloween, the holiday was severely impacted across the northeast. Many communities either canceled Halloween events, including trick or treating, or postponed them for a weekend in November. While the postponements worked on paper, some would rather events just be canceled rather than moved off October 31st.
The mayor of New Milford, Connecticut at the time opposed the call for a "do-over" on Halloween. She stated "I don’t have control over the calendar, so Halloween is on Halloween, which is the 31st."
Newtown, Connecticut was forced to postpone their big Labor Day parade to October that year due to Tropical Storm Irene. Halloween is another big event for the city, which was originally postponed to the following Saturday, November 5th. On Thursday, November 3rd, the November 5th event was canceled due to continued outages and blocked roads.
One major event, Haunted Happenings in Salem, Massachusetts was able to go on without much disruption as the North Shore of Massachusetts remained out of the bull's eye for snowfall. Some schools were also put in a pinch with lost days well before winter even began. Weston, Connecticut's public schools had canceled nine days of school by November 2nd due to this storm as well as postponing the start of the school year due to Irene.
The storm created major travel and transportation disruptions across the northeast. Significant tree damage blocked hundreds of roads and rail lines. With transport blocked and stores closed, there were some food shortages and with power out for an extended period, gas shortages were also seen as stations were forced to close during the outages.
The nor'easter did pack strong coastal winds, with near-hurricane force gusts along the Massachusetts coast. Coastal flooding was not an issue with this storm, however. Basically all of the damage came from snow weighing down and breaking branches.
The damage seen during this storm is among the most severe and widespread that New England has seen in a single storm. Significant damage occurred in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. The damage was comparable to the 2008 ice storm, although the damage in this storm was certainly more widespread.
2011 was one of the most memorable weather years in New England's recent memory. Along with this extreme early season snowstorm, Tropical Storm Irene moved through the region, bringing a massive power outage to Connecticut and devastating floods to Vermont just a couple months prior. On June 1st, 2011, a tornado outbreak occurred in New England, with six tornadoes touching down, including a massive EF3 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
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