Record setting day across the Midwest

After what has been a slow, dull, boring (but actually kind of nice) October, mother nature quickly reminded us where we all live, and how quickly things can change. A low pressure system, with a cold front attached moved across the northern United States, while a secondary low moved up from the south and merged into one "megalow". The low moving from the south ended up becoming the main low, and rapidly deepened (or strengthened) bringing some incredibly strong winds along with it. The main low bottomed out around 28.20 inches of mercury (954.96mb) at Bigfork in Itasca County. This shatters the old Minnesota lowest pressure record of 28.43 that was set in the November 10, 1998 storm at both Austin and Albert Lea. The state of Wisconsin also broke their state record for pressure, with Superior recording a reading of 28.39 inches of mercury (961.3mb). That broke a record that stood for more than 28 years, dating back to April 3rd, 1982. The measurement was taken in Green Bay. Below is a graphic showing the progression of the low, courtesy of the NWS Office in La Crosse.




With this, the storm brought sustained winds between 20 and 30mph, with gusts of 40-60+mph. This caused power outages, trees to fall, and people's lawn furniture to end up in their neighbors yard. This low was also able to tap into some moisture from the south, and cold air from the north, creating the first decent snowfall across Minnesota and North Dakota. Blizzard warnings, High Wind warnings, and a whole slew of other advisories cover the area. The cold front extending from the low ended up causing problems across a good portion of the central and eastern United States. Severe storms containing damaging winds and tornadoes caused damage across parts of southern Wisconsin, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, as well as a few other states. This is a link to a more detailed description of what happened, courtesy of the Minnesota State Climatology Office http://climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/low_pressure_101026.htm Below is a satellite image of the low, with the cold front extending south off of it.