If we're looking to bust winter snow record, October was major step in the right direction

GREEN BAY — You have to go all the way back to 1887 to find an October in Green Bay that was snowier than the one that just ended.

We officially got 5.6 inches, second in the Green Bay record books to the 10.3 inches that fell in October 1887, said Timm Uhlmann of the National Weather Service in Ashwaubenon.

The winter of 1887-88, by the way, was that massively snowy winter, the record-setter with snowfall that was more than 50 inches heavier than anything anyone alive today has experienced in Green Bay.

This October, though snowy, was only the 13th wettest on record. The rain and snow combined to give us a month of 4.42 inches of moisture, about an inch below the record.

But since we already broke the record for the wettest entire year, thanks in part to a record wet September, we can only add to the record for the rest of 2019. October’s 4.42 inches of precipitation has brought us to 43.1 inches, which is 17.22 inches above what normally falls in an entire year.

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So, with the second-heaviest snowfall in October, can we expect to have the second-heaviest snowy winter? Can we expect this winter to beat the 103.6 inches that fell in winter of 1889-90, or the 92.6 inches that fell in 2010-11?

Not necessarily, says Uhlmann, though it’s always possible.

“The latest long-term forecast calls for above average snow for at least the next few months, but we don’t know if it’ll be a record year,” Uhlmann said. “But we’ve had above normal precipitation for the last 18 months or so, and that pattern is expected to continue through January.”

In the short term, a light dusting of snow is expected Friday night into Saturday and maybe another Sunday into Monday, but there are no big storm systems looming on the horizon.

Temperatures should stay below normal through most of next week, with a slight warming trend for Sunday and Monday.

Contact Paul Srubas at (920) 265-3087 or psrubas@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @PGpaulsrubas.