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1993 Superstorm 20 yr Anniversary art.

NavarreDon

By NavarreDon,
in Southeastern States

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superjames1992

superjames1992

Posted
Posted

wow .. thanks for that link...that was an interesting read! ... wish RAH or Blacksburg would do the same (or have they?)

 

RAH has some pretty good case studies HERE, but they haven't done a case study of the 1993 Superstorm.  They do have an accumulation map, though.

 

It's nuts that the Triad got 6"+ from a low pressure taking that track right over central NC.  It just goes to show what a historic storm it really was.

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Teru Teru Bozu

Teru Teru Bozu

Posted
Posted

wow .. thanks for that link...that was an interesting read! ... wish RAH or Blacksburg would do the same (or have they?)

RAH's CWA, except for the far NW, sort of got the shaft with the '93 Superstorm as far as snow totals went. I should know. Historic, once-in-a-lifetime storm? Here, have 2" :P

Some of my dad's friends, who were hiking in the Smokies at the time, did get trapped for a while though, which was pretty scary. And that 50" bullseye over Mount Mitchell is still unreal to me. If only that low had tracked a little further east...

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LithiaWx

LithiaWx

Posted
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Reading that makes me ponder if I was under a Blizzard Warning during that storm.  I remember it vividly, I was 11 years old and it's partly what got me interested in weather. It was a true blizzard and I'll probably never see something like that again in my lifetime here in Marietta.  Whiteout conditions at times with lightning and thunder dropping about a foot in the end with drifts much higher.  Opal followed that about 2-3 years later further piquing my interest in weather.  It was an amazing time to be a kid in this area of the country for someone learning to love weather. The 1987 and 1988 snowstorms probably were the catalyst to my interest in weather followed by this and Opal.  It was a great 7-8 years living here in Marietta weather wise.

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Marion_NC_WX

Marion_NC_WX

Posted
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I measured 19 inches of snow here at my house on March 13th 1993 and I always wondered if that was totally accurate due to the drifting. I had never seen any official documentation of snowfall totals for McDowell County until reading this.

 

The biggest thing I remember was how The Weather Channel hyped this for several days. Meanwhile the local stations were not as gung-ho about it. I still remember watching former WLOS Weatherman (non certified Met.) Ken Bostic and he said at 11 pm on that Friday 4-8 for my location. The snow had already started earlier in the evening and we had 4 inches by midnight...and from there the rest was history!

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dsaur

dsaur

Posted
Posted

Reading that makes me ponder if I was under a Blizzard Warning during that storm.  I remember it vividly, I was 11 years old and it's partly what got me interested in weather. It was a true blizzard and I'll probably never see something like that again in my lifetime here in Marietta.  Whiteout conditions at times with lightning and thunder dropping about a foot in the end with drifts much higher.  Opal followed that about 2-3 years later further piquing my interest in weather.  It was an amazing time to be a kid in this area of the country for someone learning to love weather. The 1987 and 1988 snowstorms probably were the catalyst to my interest in weather followed by this and Opal.  It was a great 7-8 years living here in Marietta weather wise.

And TD Alberto was the next year, giving me more rain than I've ever seen in such a short amount of time.  You needed scuba gear to breath outside, it was raining so hard :) Two of the most anomalous storms I've ever seen, and back to back.

  If only that low in 93 had stayed in Fla.  I'd have seen my first foot of snow in Ga., lol.  Still, the only foot of snow I've ever seen was in Germany, the winter of 68.  The closest I've gotten in Ga. was 10 3/4 down here.  T

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Marion_NC_WX

Marion_NC_WX

Posted
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http://www.erh.noaa.gov/ilm/archive/Superstorm93/

 

The link above is to a website that has a ton of archived info from the March 93 storm...

 

I still to this day can't believe it took the NWS as long as it did to upgrade the North Carolina foothills to a Blizzard Warning. Granted back then all the zone forecasts came out of Raleigh. Here is what our zone forecast looked like the evening of the 12th...

 

 

NCZ007-013-130500-NORTHERN FOOTHILLS-SOUTHERN FOOTHILLS-417 PM EST FRI MAR 12 1993...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY TONIGHT AND SATURDAY....TONIGHT...SNOW DEVELOPING WITH SNOW BECOMING MIXED WITH RAIN LATETONIGHT. SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 3 INCHES POSSIBLE. LOW IN THEMID 30S. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 100 PERCENT. NORTHEAST WIND AT15 MPH..SATURDAY...SNOW MIXED WITH RAIN ESPECIALLY DURING THE MORNING.WINDY. HIGH IN THE MID 30S. CHANCE OF RAIN 100 PERCENT. NORTHWESTWIND AT 20 TO 30 MPH AND GUSTY..SATURDAY NIGHT...CLOUDY AND WINDY WITH A CHANCE OF SOME LIGHTSNOW. LOW IN THE MID 20S. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 30 PERCENT..SUNDAY...DECREASING CLOUDINESS AND CONTINUED WINDY. HIGH IN THEMID 40S.

 

 

 

Even with early morning update on the 13th, the NWS was slow to pull the trigger. At this point, I probably had 7-8 inches of snow on the ground...

 

 

NCZ007-131700-NORTHERN FOOTHILLS-407 AM EST SAT MAR 13 1993...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY......HIGH WIND WATCH....TODAY...WINDY. MIXTURE OF SNOW AND RAIN...WITH AN ADDITIONALACCUMULATION OF 1 TO 2 INCHES OF SNOW POSSIBLE. HIGH IN THE MID30S. CHANCE OF RAIN 100 PERCENT. NORTHWEST WIND 25 TO 35 MPH ANDGUSTY..TONIGHT...CLOUDY AND WINDY WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW. LOW IN THEMID 20S. CHANCE OF SNOW 50 PERCENT. WIND BECOMING WEST 25 TO 35MPH AND GUSTY..SUNDAY...DECREASING CLOUDINESS AND CONTINUED WINDY. HIGH IN THEMID 40S.

 

 

 

 

But by late Saturday morning update...the NWS finally jumped on board...

 

NCZ007-140000-NORTHERN FOOTHILLS-1141 AM EST SAT MAR 13 1993...BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT....THIS AFTERNOON...WINDY WITH SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW. NORTHEAST WIND 25TO 35 MPH AND GUSTY BECOMING NORTHWEST. POSSIBLY EVEN A THUNDERSTORM.TEMPERATURES HOLDING AROUND 30..TONIGHT...SNOW TAPERING OFF AND WINDY. STORM TOTAL OF ONE FOOT ORMORE. LOW IN THE MID 20S. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.WIND BECOMING WEST 30 TO 40 MPH AND GUSTY..SUNDAY...DECREASING CLOUDINESS AND CONTINUED WINDY. HIGH IN THEMID 40S.
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jshetley

jshetley

Posted
Posted

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/ilm/archive/Superstorm93/

 

The link above is to a website that has a ton of archived info from the March 93 storm...

 

I still to this day can't believe it took the NWS as long as it did to upgrade the North Carolina foothills to a Blizzard Warning. Granted back then all the zone forecasts came out of Raleigh. Here is what our zone forecast looked like the evening of the 12th...

Thanks for the link. I had been looking for something like this for a long time.

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EmersonGA

EmersonGA

Posted
Posted

Reading that makes me ponder if I was under a Blizzard Warning during that storm.  I remember it vividly, I was 11 years old and it's partly what got me interested in weather. It was a true blizzard and I'll probably never see something like that again in my lifetime here in Marietta.  Whiteout conditions at times with lightning and thunder dropping about a foot in the end with drifts much higher.  Opal followed that about 2-3 years later further piquing my interest in weather.  It was an amazing time to be a kid in this area of the country for someone learning to love weather. The 1987 and 1988 snowstorms probably were the catalyst to my interest in weather followed by this and Opal.  It was a great 7-8 years living here in Marietta weather wise.

I was 10 at the time so thankfully I remember the storm vividly.  I do have two complaints about the storm.  Losing power sucked since it got so cold and the snow was too powdery to play in for a few days.  I still remember my grandfather plowing the dirt roads through our land with a tractor just so the family could move around.  We measured around 14" at our house but my uncle at the other side of the property claims 18".  Either way it was still a once in a lifetime storm.

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tonysc

tonysc

Posted
Posted

I remember when I got home from work that day at 4:30 in the afternoon, it was snowing from north Florida all the way up the Atlantic coast to Maine and almost all the way back to the Mississippi River. I remember thinking to myself I had never seen anything like that and knew that storm would go down in the history books.

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Teru Teru Bozu

Teru Teru Bozu

Posted
Posted
I remember when I got home from work that day at 4:30 in the afternoon, it was snowing from north Florida all the way up the Atlantic coast to Maine and almost all the way back to the Mississippi River. I remember thinking to myself I had never seen anything like that and knew that storm would go down in the history books.

Yeah, it's really amazing how large an area that that storm impacted, and how varied the effects were as well. I remember watching news footage of the storm surge flooding and severe weather in Florida, and thinking that they were having a (totally separate) hurricane at the same time that were were having a snowstorm. Being a little kid at the time, I couldn't imagine how the same storm could cause that kind of weather AND lots of snow at the same time.

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Marion_NC_WX

Marion_NC_WX

Posted
Posted

One thing I've read on the Superstorm was that the strength of the storm was under-forecasted in the Gulf, and over-forecasted for the mid-Atlantic and New England.

 

 

I think because the storm bombed out in the Gulf of Mexico is what allowed the blizzard conditions so far south. About 95 percent of the time the Miller-A storms tend to bomb out North Carolina and northward.

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toxictwister00

toxictwister00

Posted
Posted

TWC experiencing technical difficulties during the Superstorm. The live on air programming begins at around 5:22



Also if you haven't seen James Spann's coverage of the Superstorm, I would definitely recommend watching it. It's about 5 parts in all and there's a few moments where Mr. Spann is on air barefoot after being on live most of the night/morning.

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