October = Snow?

When you hear the word snow, what month first comes to mind? January ... December ... November?

In recent years, October has delivered its share of notable, and in some cases destructive, snowstorms to parts of the country.

Let's step through some of these recent October snow events, starting with what had once been a hurricane.

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Superstorm Sandy's Snowy Side

Boone, N.C.

Eva Miranda, 27, battles through howling wind and snow as she makes her way across the campus at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chuck Liddy)

One of the most bizarre aspects of Superstorm Sandy, aside from its unusual track, was its heavy snow.

included a one-paragraph section regarding Sandy's "widespread heavy snow, exceptionally rare in association with a tropical cyclone or one having just lost its tropical characteristics."

Up to 3 feet of snow buried parts of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. More than 50 locations reported at least 1 foot of snow.

Charleston, W.Va. picked up 9.4 inches of snow on Oct. 30 alone. Their previous snowiest October day was only 2.8 inches.

One man died from shoveling snow and a few roofs collapsed in West Virginia. Roads were shut down, including Interstate 68 in western Maryland and northeast West Virginia.

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"Snowtober" 2011

Exactly one year prior to Sandy's East Coast rampage, heavy, wet snow was the concern for a large swath of the Northeast from a storm dubbed "Snowtober."

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Previous October snowfall records were crushed in many Northeast cities.

New York's Central Park (2.9 inches) picked up its first one-inch-plus October snowfall on record, dating back to Reconstruction. It was only the fourth time any measurable snow had fallen there in October.

Hartford, Conn., crushed its previous snowiest October day by over seven times, measuring a whopping 12.3 inches in just one day. Allentown, Pa., (6.8 inches) and Harrisburg, Pa., (5.5 inches) also set October snowstorm records.

With more than a foot of snow deposited from parts of northeast Pennsylvania to Maine, and leaves still remaining on some trees, tree damage and power outages were widespread.

More than3 million customers were without power, some for more than a week. This number of outages was roughly comparable to the outages during Hurricane Katrina.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 39 deaths were either directly or indirectly attributed to Snowtober.

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Nittany Storm 2009

October snow in State College, Pa. I measured 5 inches of accumulation ... but certainly more fell and melted! (Credit: iWitnessWeather/PeteJ)

The second week of October 2009 induced a little calendar confusion for a broad swath of the Plains and Northeast.

A strong surge of Arctic air, by October standards, plunged into the Plains and expanded into much of the East. Omaha, Neb., was blanketed by 3.5 inches of snow on Oct. 10, missing their heaviest/earliest in season snow by a single day.

After that cold air settled into the Northeast, an upper-level disturbance plunged out of the Great Lakes, setting the stage for a destructive winter storm.

Meteorologist Mike Seidel gets his Nittany Lion fix in a record-setting early snowstorm in State College, Pa. on Oct. 16, 2009.

Up to 9 inches of snow fell over northern and parts of central Pennsylvania on Oct. 15-16, with additional accumulations in southern New York. A swath of 6-8 inches of snow was laid down over parts of Potter, Tioga, Lycoming, Clinton and Centre counties. Nine inches was measured atop MountNittany.

A total of 4.7 inches of snow was measured on the campus of Penn State University in State College, the earliest date of measurable snow on record, there, dating to 1893. The previous earliest calendar day with at least that amount of snowfall there was Nov. 5, 1939.

With fall foliage typically peaking in early-mid October, this wet, heavy snow damaged many trees, a number of which then fell onto power lines, knocking out power to thousands.

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Buffalo's Crippling 2006 Snowstorm

Local residents watch as crews clear fallen trees Oct. 16, 2006, in Amherst, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. More than 250 thousand homes remained without power after a rare snowstorm dumped more than 2 feet of snow on Oct. 13. (John Normile/Getty Images)

The U.S. weather pattern in mid-October 2006 was dominated by one feature, , wrapping in a November-like air mass into the Plains, Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes.

From this anomalous pattern came anomalous results.

First, while only amounting to about a quarter to a third of an inch, the record earliest accumulating snow fell in cities such as Chicago and Detroit on Oct. 12.

Winter weatherexpert Tom Niziol ( | ) was the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Buffalo, N.Y. during this event. NWS was watching for the potential of a bizarre early-season lake snowstorm beginning six days before the storm. The key question: With lake temperatures above normal (still in the low 60s) and marginal low-level cold air, would it be cold enough to snow?

Unfortunately for Buffalo, the answer was an emphatic yes.

Over a 16-hour period, up to 2 feet of heavy, wet lake-effect snow fell in a narrow band centered over the Buffalo metro area. The heaviest snow fell overnight on Oct. 12 into the morning of Oct. 13. Buffalo's Niagara Airport picked up 8 inches of snow in two hours early on Friday the 13th, accompanied by frequent lightning. As it turned out, the contrast between the warm lake and increasingly cold air created lake-effect snow thunderstorms. Storm tops from 25,000 to 30,000 feet were about double what NWS-Buffalo previously noted, according to .

The storm total in Buffalo (22.6 inches) obliterated all previous October snow records, there. Not only that, this was the seventh greatest snowstorm all-time for the city. Most other snowstorms on the list occurred in December and January!

(FULL RECAP: )

The heavy, wet snow took a heavy toll on trees and power lines. Roughly a million customers lost power, some for up to a week, as downed trees and tree limbs, most of which still had their leaves, were widespread. Put simply, the level of damage and outagesfrom this freak snowstormwas unprecedented for western New York.

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High Plains Blizzard 1997

Omar Cano shovels the more than a foot and a half of snow away from his car as his friend Kyle Zinth watches on Oct. 25, 1997, in Denver. A blizzard dropped more than 3 feet of snow in the greater Denver area, stranding motorists and closing Denver International Airport. (DOUG COLLIER/AFP/Getty Images)

October does not register in the top six snowiest months, on average, in Denver. Even April (5.6 inches) is a tad more snowy than October (4.4 inches).

But averages smooth out extremes, such as Oct. 24-26, 1997.

A blizzard dumped 14-31 inches of snow over the city of Denver, and 2-4 feet of snow in the foothills southwest and west of the Mile High City. Officially, a 24-hour October snowfall record of 19.1 inches was measured at the site of the old Stapleton Airport. Coal Creek Canyon measured 51 inches of total snow.

Winds gusting up to 60 mph on the Front Range and eastern Plains of Colorado whipped drifts up to 15 feet high, paralyzing travel.

A 160-mile stretch of Interstate 25 in Colorado and a 180-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in Nebraska was shut down. Four thousand were stranded when Denver International Airport was shut down. According to the National Weather Service in Boulder, Colo., at least 120 cars were abandoned along Pena Boulevard, the only road leading to the airport. Red Cross shelters were set up for hundreds of stranded travelers.

According to severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes, a downslope windstorm flattened 20,000 acres of forest northeast of Steamboat Springs, Colo., on Oct. 25, with estimated winds up to 120 mph.

As of this writing, the October 1997 snowstorm currently ranks seventh heaviest in Denver history. Interestingly, the sixth-heaviest snowstorm on that list was another October storm from 1906.

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Minnesota's Halloween Blizzard

Visible satellite loop of Upper Midwest Halloween Storm from Oct. 31 through Nov. 1, 1991. (Images credit: Univ. of Wisconsin / SSEC / CIMSS)

While "The Perfect Storm" was raking the Northeast seaboard, a massive snowstorm was obliterating records in the Upper Midwest over Halloween 1991.

(MORE: {written in 2011})

This was the snowstorm of record in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. (28.4 inches). Duluth's 36.9-inch snow total was a Minnesota state record!

If that wasn't enough, an ice storm crippled parts of southern Minnesota, knocking out power for almost a week. National Guard troops delivered emergency generators to farms.

Then a cold wave followed, sending temperatures plungingto -3 degrees in the Twin Cities just days later on Nov. 4, ensuring the snow and ice-packed streets would remain for the following week.

The University of Minnesota campus was shut down, as well as roughly 900 other businesses, according to . At least 20 people were killed.

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MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Seeing Snow From Space

February 19, 2007

This image clearly shows the dividing line between fresh snow cover and bare ground right along the I-95 corridor in the Northeast.