ROANOKE, Va. – To this day when meteorology students take a synoptic (large-scale) forecasting class, professors will commonly refer to the Superstorm of 1993.
It was a benchmark storm for many, including in our area.
Just check out the comments going down memory lane.
Most remember the power outages, the snow drifts, the extended school closures, etc.
This was a storm that had multiple components - from Cuba to New England.
These components all came together to create the perfect storm along what’s referred to as a zone of baroclinic instability.
A strengthening area of low pressure rode along the East Coast with Arctic air to its west and warmer air to its east. As the area of low pressure deepened, the wind surrounding it got stronger and the effects from tornadoes to snow became more intense.
In fact, an overview showed that (at the time) this broke records for low air pressure along the East Coast, from Georgia to Maine.
Closer to home, the snow was the main story.
Several locations in our area received a foot to two feet of snow. Snowshoe saw close to four feet while Mt. LeConte in Tennessee saw five feet of snow.
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Accumulating snow spanned from the Florida Panhandle to the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
What many don’t know is the other damage that was caused by this behemoth of a storm.
In Florida and Cuba, wind gusts peaked between 70 and 110 mph. That’s something you see more commonly with hurricanes.
There were a number of tornadoes that formed in the warm sector of the storm.
Similar to a hurricane, the storm surge on Florida’s Gulf Coast reached very high levels.
Fast-forward 31 years later, and the weather is much calmer.
Get a check of the forecast through St. Patrick’s Day weekend here.