Weather Forecast for Halloween!

Fear not -- unlike the photo with the snow-covered Jack O'Lanterns from 2019 -- no SNOW is in the forecast for this Halloween. Whew.

The National Weather Service in Des Moines has forecast this Halloween to be, well, NORMAL. It should be sunny with highs around 50* during the day, and the low temperature that night – as we welcome in the month of November – should be right around the freezing point of 32*. Again, quite normal.

The ‘normal’ high temperature on Halloween in Waterloo is 55*. However, in 2020, All Hallows Eve was rather warm, with a high of 67* --- the warmest Halloween Day since 2008 when it reached 72*.

All-time record high (since 1895) for Halloween is 83* set in 1933 and again in 1950. The high temperatures on Halloween have only reached into the 80s just THREE times since 1895, most recently in 1968. As for high temps making it to the 70s in Waterloo, it has only achieved that figure just 13 times on Halloween.

The coldest HIGH temp for Halloween was a chilly 33* in 1996. Brrrr.

When I was a kid trick-or-treating in the 1980s, it felt like it rained (or snowed) EVERY HALLOWEEN --- and it nearly did. From 1981-1987 it rained on EVERY Halloween and eight of the 10 years that decade. More recently, it has only rained (or snowed) on Halloween just eight times in the past 30 years and, overall, 38% of all Halloweens since 1895 have featured some sort of precipitation.

The main point to take from all of this is that tell your kids to bundle up on Sunday evening as they collect their treats. Halloween isn’t nearly as fun with frozen fingers and a runny nose! STAY WARM!