From NWS
1997: A major winter storm moved into western Iowa just before midnight on October 25th and spread across about the southeastern two thirds of the state on the 26th. Two bands of heavy snow developed, one extending from Council Bluffs northeast through Boone and the other extending from northern Ringgold County northeast to around Cedar Rapids. The heaviest snowfall accumulations included 11.3 inches at Knoxville and an amazing 13.0 inches southwest of Mineola in Pottawattamie County. Electricity was lost to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in central and southern Iowa as snow laden trees fell onto power lines. This was the most significant heavy snow event so early in the season in Iowa since the storm of October 16-17, 1898. On the morning of the 27th temperatures plummeted with the aid of the fresh snow pack on the ground, bottoming out at 9 F at Atlantic and Guthrie Center which was the coldest Iowa temperature recorded so early in the season since 1972. While this system produced nearly all of the snow that fell during the month, it was still enough to make it the third-snowiest October on record in Iowa only behind those of 1898 and 1925.

26 October 1865 → A hurricane sank the steamship USS Mobile in 1,700 feet of water off the Georgia coast. The wreck, laden with 20,000 gold coins, was found in 2003. 26 October 1998 → Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since 1780, struck Central America, killing more than 11,000 people. Winds peaked at 180 mph, and maintained hurricane intensity for 24 hours after making landfall. The tropical system drenched the region with over a foot of rainfall. 26 October 2003 → A surfer was killed while he was surfing in the storm-tossed seas of the Gulf of Mexico when he was struck by lightning near Destin, FL. 26 October 2010 → The lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the U.S. between the Rockies and the Appalachians with a non-tropical system was set at Big Fork, MN, with a pressure of 28.21″.

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