Thirty years ago today, our region was digging out from a nasty early-season blizzard. The high temperature was 15 degrees and the following four nights would all go below zero.
Like a lot of early-season storms, the storm has a lot of warm air contrasting with the cold.
Snow totaled two feet or more from Devils Lake to Winnipeg. Here in the Fargo area, the precipitation fell as rain on November 6 and 7. It was still 48 degrees at midnight on the 8th, but by sunrise, rain had turned to snow with wind gusts over 50 mph. Only four inches of snow fell in Fargo, but the visibility remained near zero all day.
The NDSU football team played Augustana College outside at old Dakota Field in that blizzard in front of a few thousand shivering Bison fans who couldn’t see across the field. The Bison won the game 25-0, and finished the season undefeated and National Champions of Division II. The winter of 1986-87 turned soft and finished the warmest on record.
