It didn’t match the destruction of the 1991 Halloween storm, but Mother Nature last Thursday fired the first volley of this coming winter with a storm that wreaked havoc on trees, power lines and trick-or-treating plans.

And if temperatures had been lower, it’s hard to predict just how much snow would have fallen.

Record heat had enveloped the area just two days earlier, but the Halloween storm brought rain, heavy sleet and then snowfall that accumulated on wet surfaces including tree limbs.

According to the National Weather Service, visibility fell to under a quarter-mile in much of the storm area.

Temperatures hovered above freezing throughout the day, meaning the accumulations of the wet snow was tempered by constant melting.

As many as four inches of snow were reported on the ground across Central Minnesota, while there were isolated reports of amounts higher than that in some areas.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation reported over 200 vehicle spin-outs across the state, as the wet snow stuck to roadways and became packed into ice in some places.

Both Xcel Energy and Connexus reported service interruptions, as limbs turned into projectiles and took down power and cable lines.  

Social media was flooded with reports of power outages, and pictures of numerous branches that had faltered under the immense weight.  Some posts contained descriptions of people who were in their backyards hearing loud snapping noises as the branches broke.

Other posts reported transformer fires, while the Becker Police Department Facebook page advised people to limit travel if possible. 

By 9 p.m., Xcel’s online outage map showed just over 200 isolated outages, most to the south of Sherburne County.

Nearly as fast at it had blown in, the storm moved out of the area and left behind many damaged trees.  Over the next three days, the compost site in Becker saw a nearly constant line of vehicles as people were busy cleaning up the mess.