CBS News
Which state has the most Halloween spirit? Find out here
The Halloween season is in full swing. Between haunted houses, Spirit Halloween stores and horror movie locations, there are a number of ways to get into the spooky spirit.
The CBS News Data Team looked at five different Halloween-themed metrics to determine which state has the most Halloween spirit: Haunted house locations from Yelp, horror movie filming locations from IMDB, Spirit Halloween stores, haunted sites and Google search interest.
These are the top five states:
- New Hampshire: This New England state has Spirit Halloween stores per capita and the highest number of haunted houses per capita. The state also ranks near the top for haunted sites and Google search interest, but is near the bottom for horror movie locations. All this results in a 8.1 on our jack-o-lantern scale.
- Utah: With a score of 7.9 out of 10 on our jack-o-lantern scale, Utah is ranked highest for Halloween Google search interest and is in the top 10 for most Spirit Halloween stores per capita. The state ranks in the top for haunted houses and in the middle for haunted sites and horror movie locations.
- Kentucky: Top 5 rankings for haunted houses, haunted sites and Google search interest resulted in a 7.4 on our jack-o-lantern scale, putting Kentucky at rank No. 3.
- Pennsylvania: Top 10 rankings for Spirit Halloween stores per capita, Google search interest and horror movie filming locations bring Pennsylvania to a 7.4 out of 10 on our jack-o-lantern scale. The state is also in the top 20 for haunted houses and in the middle for haunted sites.
- Rhode Island: It’s the smallest state in the country, but Rhode Island has the largest number of horror movie locations per capita. That ranking, along with high rankings in haunted houses and haunted sites, brings Rhode Island’s jack-o-lantern score to a 7.1 out of 10.
See the rankings for each state in the table below, and keep reading for a breakdown of each of our spooky measures that go into our jack-o-lantern scale.
Haunted houses
According to a CBS News analysis of haunted house locations from Yelp, there are more than 1,000 haunted houses listed on Yelp across the country.
New Hampshire has the highest rate at more than seven haunted houses per 1 million people, which is about one haunted house for every 140,000 people.
Hawaii is No. 2, with about six haunted houses per 1 million people, followed by Rhode Island, Tennessee and Arkansas.
Yelp also helped us gather data about corn mazes around the country. See that full story here.
Horror movie locations
Maine tops the list of horror movie filming locations per 1 million people at 150 total horror movies, which is about 107 per 1 million people. That’s one horror movie filmed in Maine for every 9,000 people, according to a CBS analysis of data from IMDB.
The next highest, unsurprisingly, is California, with a whopping 3,850 horror movies filmed in the Golden State. This rounds to nearly 99 per 1 million people. Next is New Mexico, followed by Louisiana and Nevada.
Spirit Halloween stores
Spirit Halloween opened in 1983, and this year, opened nearly 1,500 seasonal stores in the U.S., with a total of 1,525 stores in North America.
The state with the most Spirit Halloween stores is California at nearly 200. But New Hampshire has the highest rate of stores: 12 stores total, with a rate of nearly nine per 1 million people. The next highest states are: Oklahoma, Colorado, Idaho and Arizona, with rates of nearly seven Spirit Halloween stores per 1 million people.
Spirit Halloween stores are notorious for taking over locations of other stores that have closed or gone out of business, typically setting up shop in malls or strip malls. Many locations on the Spirit Halloween website label the former location of the store.
Of the locations that had former stores listed, at least 82 were once Bed Bath and Beyond stores. The next highest former location was Rite Aid at 72, followed by Tuesday Morning at 64. Sears and .99 cent and dollar stores rounded out the top five.
Haunted sites
Wyoming tops the list of most haunted sites per capita. With 78 haunted places, that puts the state at about 13 per 100,000 people.
Next is Vermont and Kentucky, both with about eight haunted sites per 100,000 people. Rounding out the top five is South Dakota and North Dakota.
Interested in visiting one of these haunted places? The Haunted Places Index has a list of locations by state.
Google searches
Google trends data from Aug. 1 to Oct. 22, 2024 shows Utah has the highest search interest in “Halloween” as a general celebration.
That’s followed by West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
For more on Google trends around Halloween, costumes and movies, see our full trends story here.
How we got these rankings
The CBS News Data Team obtained haunted house locations from Yelp, Spirit Halloween locations from the Spirit Halloween website, haunted sites from the Haunted Places Index, horror movie locations from IMDB, and Google trends data about Halloween search interest from Aug. 1 to Oct. 22, 2024.
For the location data (all the metrics except for the Google trends data), we grouped the locations to get a total count for each state. Then, using the most recent state population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, we found the rate per one million people for each of these locations.
From there, our team ranked each state by the rate of each location per capita and ranked the google trends data, which is already normalized for population.
For each metric, the highest ranked state received a score of 50, and the lowest ranked state received a score of one. We averaged each state’s scores, divided them by 50, then multiplied by 10 to get a score out of 10 points. That score was used to find the “jack-o-lantern” score out of 10 points.
Note: Many of these metrics rely on crowdsourcing. The haunted house data, for example, only have locations reported on and by Yelp, so it may not include every haunted house that is not in Yelp’s data. The haunted sites data only has locations reported by the Haunted Places Index, which may not include every site considered “haunted” in the country.
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CBS News
Minnesota may get snow Thursday. Here’s how much more the Halloween Blizzard Of 1991 dropped.
MINNEAPOLIS — When it comes to Halloween in Minnesota, you can expect to hear the sounds of ghosts and goblins. You can also expect the sound of lifelong Minnesotans (Gen X or older) collectively reminding the never-not-reminded rest of Minnesota about that one time it snowed a lot on Halloween.
While WCCO meteorologist Joseph Dames says this year’s Halloween forecast does call for some snowflakes, it will be nothing compared to the wave of white that plopped down on the area 33 years ago.
The Halloween Blizzard of 1991 is a story that is brought up year after year as a badge of honor for those who lived through it. Blustery winds and plummeting temperatures on Halloween night made going house-to-house for trick-or-treaters or just about anywhere a challenge.
But Halloween night was just the start.
On the spooky night itself, Minneapolis-St. Paul got just over eight inches of snow. And on the next day? Another 18.5 inches. The day after that another inch fell. And on Nov. 3, a few more tenths of an inch, bringing a whopping 28.4 inches of snow, the biggest single storm still on record.
But there was an even bigger event roughly a decade prior. Two consecutive snowstorms hit the Twin Cities just days apart in January of 1982. Those two waves resulted in 37.4 inches, which is significantly more than even the famed 1991 Halloween blizzard.
Former WCCO team member reminisces
Former WCCO Meteorologist Paul Huttner remembers the around-the-clock updates on a blustery Nov. 1 morning.
“It came fast and was a shock,” Huttner recalled. “We’re saying that’s going to be more than 20 inches of snow! That’s not really going to happen, right?”
As the Twin Cities woke up, the snow picked up, at times falling two inches an hour. The wet, heavy snow collapsed rooftops and stranded firefighters. Police swapped their squads for snowmobiles to navigate the roads while others used skis to get down the street.
“As a meteorologist, you always want to work the big storm,” Huttner said. “As I saw there that morning, I knew it was huge. I had no idea this would stand as the biggest snowstorm in Twin Cities history as I sit here 30 years later.”
That blizzard left mountains snow on the ground. It melted away about a week later, but we picked up another 14 inches over Thanksgiving. And that snow stuck around until early March.
and
contributed to this report.
CBS News
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack
A suspect has been arrested nearly three weeks after a Montana camper was found brutally killed in an attack that was initially reported as a bear attack, authorities late Wednesday.
The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said it had identified a suspect in the murder of Dustin Kjersem, who was found dead in his tent earlier this month. The suspect, who was not identified, was in custody on unrelated charges, authorities said.
“The suspect is cooperating with our detectives and has led us to the evidence we have identified in prior press releases,” the sheriff’s office said.
Kjersem, 35, was found dead earlier this month by a friend who reported Kjersem appeared to have been killed by a bear — but officials soon discovered the camper was actually the victim of a brutal murder.
Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office
The sheriff’s office said Wednesday the investigation is ongoing but “it is believed the suspect acted alone and there is no longer a threat to the community.”
Last week, authorities said they were are looking for a large axe and other items that were likely taken from the crime scene. Authorities said they were looking for a blue and silver Estwing camp axe, likely with a 26″ handle, as well as a Remington shotgun and Ruger Blackhawk revolver. The sheriff’s office said it was also looking for an orange Tundra 45 cooler made by YETI.
Earlier this month, a friend discovered Kjersem’s body in a tent at a makeshift campsite along Moose Creek Road and called 911, telling responders the death appeared to have been caused by a bear attack, the sheriff’s office previously said.
But a state wildlife official found no signs of bear activity, and investigators said they soon found evidence of a “vicious attack.” An autopsy later showed Kjersem sustained “multiple chop wounds,” including to his skull.
Kjersem’s sister Jillian Price said her brother was a skilled tradesman and a doting father.
A GoFundMe set up for Kjersem’s children has raised more than $27,000.
FBI investigates arson attacks on ballot dropboxes in Oregon and Washington
Minnesota may get snow Thursday. Here’s how much more the Halloween Blizzard Of 1991 dropped.
Suspect “led us to the evidence” in Montana camper’s brutal killing, initially thought to have been bear attack
FBI investigates arson attacks on ballot dropboxes in Oregon and Washington
Minnesota may get snow Thursday. Here’s how much more the Halloween Blizzard Of 1991 dropped.