Before the Candy Came the Snow: Remembering Northwest Kansas’ October Blizzard of 1997

If you’re feeling a little chilly today, northwest Kansas, here’s some perspective: At least you aren’t looking for your snow shovel under 19 inches of snow.

Colby’s forecast for today, October 26, includes cloudy skies, afternoon temperatures in the lower 50s and a possibility of evening rain. Jacket weather? Sure. Dig-your-car-out weather? A very different story from this date in 1997.

Twenty-nine years ago, Mother Nature apparently decided northwest Kansas had enjoyed enough fall. Halloween was still five days away, but winter had already invited itself over.

The Prairie Museum of Art & History shared a reminder of the historic snowfall, and NOAA-based records back up the impressive number: Colby recorded 19 inches on October 26, 1997, its largest recorded one-day snowfall. That’s a foot and a half, plus another inch for good measure.

Forget a little frost on the pumpkin. This was more of a “there’s a pumpkin under there somewhere” situation.

The October 24–26 storm swept across the Rockies and central Plains, delivering heavy snow to Kansas and Nebraska as a powerful low-pressure system crossed southern Colorado. It was an early arrival with very little interest in making a polite entrance.

And Colby certainly wasn’t digging out alone.

Near Norcatur, the weather station three miles west-southwest of town recorded 24 inches on October 26. Lenora reported 21.5 inches that same day. Goodland recorded 19.3 inches on October 25. For anyone keeping score, that’s two feet near Norcatur and nearly that much in several other communities.

Those figures are individual one-day observations, so they should not be confused with countywide averages or full storm totals. But however you measure it, that is a lot of October to shovel.

Part of what made the storm so disruptive was what came before it. According to the National Weather Service in Hastings, parts of the affected region had enjoyed temperatures in the 70s and 80s during the preceding week. Many trees still had their leaves.

Then came the heavy, wet snow.

Leaves gave the snow more places to pile up, and branches paid the price. Thousands of limbs broke across the broader storm area, helping knock out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people. The quick change from warm afternoons to snow-covered neighborhoods was considerably less charming than a holiday movie montage.

Out in the fields, the storm was causing problems of its own. Kansas State University’s 1997 sorghum report documented that wind and snow from the October 25 blizzard knocked over plants at its Colby irrigated test site. Fortunately, researchers reported that most grain heads could still be harvested, helping limit the impact on yields. Harvest season already comes with enough challenges without adding “find the crop beneath the snow” to the list.

Across other parts of western Kansas, the storm turned far more serious. The National Weather Service in Dodge City reports that portions of west-central and southwest Kansas received 10 to 20 inches, with strong north winds creating drifts 15 to 20 feet deep. Roads remained impassable for days in some areas, and more than 35,000 cattle died across western Kansas. Those losses are a reminder that behind the remarkable snowfall numbers was a difficult and costly storm for rural communities and agriculture.

Naturally, looking back at all that snow brings up another question: What are we in for this winter?

NOAA’s outlook for December 2026 through February 2027 points to a strong El Niño influencing the season, with wetter conditions favored across the southern United States and portions of the central Plains. Before anyone starts shopping for a bigger snowblower, though, wetter does not automatically mean snowier. Northwest Kansas snowfall will depend on temperatures and where individual storms travel. The seasonal outlook does not offer a specific snow total for Colby or predict another 1997-style blizzard.

For today, we’ll take the jacket weather and leave the two-foot snowbanks in the history books.

But if you were here in October 1997, we want to hear about it. What do you remember? Where were you snowed in? And do you have a photo of a drift that still deserves bragging rights?

Share your memories and pictures with NWKS Radio. Somewhere in those old photo albums is proof that northwest Kansas once needed snow boots before it needed Halloween candy.