Central PA - March 2013

[jm1220]

20th anniversary of the 1993 Superstorm tomorrow. Was anyone here around to witness it? I was 8 years old at the time, in my hometown of Long Beach and vaguely remember it as a lot of snow but changing over to sleet/rain and then refreezing into cement with coastal flooding as well. I know from all the stories I was told during my time at PSU that it was one of the all time greats out in that area. Going through some of the maps, it must have been amazing with heavy snow from 6am on 3/13 until well after midnight.

[paweather]

20th anniversary of the 1993 Superstorm tomorrow. Was anyone here around to witness it? I was 8 years old at the time, in my hometown of Long Beach and vaguely remember it as a lot of snow but changing over to sleet/rain and then refreezing into cement with coastal flooding as well. I know from all the stories I was told during my time at PSU that it was one of the all time greats out in that area. Going through some of the maps, it must have been amazing with heavy snow from 6am on 3/13 until well after midnight.

I was 23 years old the greatest storm I ever seen to date. Heavy Snow and then at times sleet in Harrisburg. It was plain AWESOME. Not another storm that could compare to the dynamicis of this storm. Ended up with over 20" of snow. Superstorm lived up to it's name and yes there were others but this truly was one for the ages. I hope I see another but doubt I will. Just all sorts of weather with this storm made it so unique.

[NeffsvilleWx]

20th anniversary of the 1993 Superstorm tomorrow. Was anyone here around to witness it? I was 8 years old at the time, in my hometown of Long Beach and vaguely remember it as a lot of snow but changing over to sleet/rain and then refreezing into cement with coastal flooding as well. I know from all the stories I was told during my time at PSU that it was one of the all time greats out in that area. Going through some of the maps, it must have been amazing with heavy snow from 6am on 3/13 until well after midnight.

 

Yes. I had just turned 8. We lost power, I wasn't happy about it because I had gotten super mario kart for my b-day and couldn't play it.

 

I remember going with my parents to purchase a kerosene heater a few days beforehand. Turned out to be a good purchase as we didn't have power for 3-4 days.

[2001kx]

i lived in bellwood / pinecroft during the storm.

i remember it taking me forever just to walk to the mailbox in waist deep snow.

from what i remember it started snowing hard in the morning and i dont remember it ever slowing down until it was over.

by far he best storm i have ever seen and prob. will ever see.

 

not sure on how much snow we had but it had to be around 30"

 

I wish i had some pic of it (i have none)

does anyone have any??

[MAG5035]

i lived in bellwood / pinecroft during the storm.

i remember it taking me forever just to walk to the mailbox in waist deep snow.

from what i remember it started snowing hard in the morning and i dont remember it ever slowing down until it was over.

by far he best storm i have ever seen and prob. will ever see.

 

not sure on how much snow we had but it had to be around 30"

 

I wish i had some pic of it (i have none)

does anyone have any??

 

I really wish I had pics of it or knew someone that had pics. I was only turning 7 for this storm so I don't remember much beyond being angry it cancelled my 7th birthday party as well as a couple mental images of riding with my dad snow plowing really early in the storm before he dropped me off at my grandparents when it started getting too bad. I need hypnosis or something haha. 

 

I have heard the stories though, especially about the prolific drifting this storm produced as the wind factor of this storm was far greater than our other legendary storms to go with the very intense snowfall. When I had my summer job at the Bellwood PennDot shed I asked one of the guys about it once. Since you used to live down here I'd imagine your familiar with Sinking valley just over the mountain from Bellwood. I remember him saying it took over a week to reopen the roads out there. You can look at the archived data on wunderground and you'll see at stations like AOO, JST, and UNV that winds were sustained about 25-30 with gusts 35-45 from 10-11am on the 13th thru about the first half of the 14th. Temps also fell into the low teens for the later part of the storm as well. I'd kill to remember going through this storm. 

[2001kx]

I really wish I had pics of it or knew someone that had pics. I was only turning 7 for this storm so I don't remember much beyond being angry it cancelled my 7th birthday party as well as a couple mental images of riding with my dad snow plowing really early in the storm before he dropped me off at my grandparents when it started getting too bad. I need hypnosis or something haha. 

 

I have heard the stories though, especially about the prolific drifting this storm produced as the wind factor of this storm was far greater than our other legendary storms to go with the very intense snowfall. When I had my summer job at the Bellwood PennDot shed I asked one of the guys about it once. Since you used to live down here I'd imagine your familiar with Sinking valley just over the mountain from Bellwood. I remember him saying it took over a week to reopen the roads out there. You can look at the archived data on wunderground and you'll see at stations like AOO, JST, and UNV that winds were sustained about 25-30 with gusts 35-45 from 10-11am on the 13th thru about the first half of the 14th. Temps also fell into the low teens for the later part of the storm as well. I'd kill to remember going through this storm. 

not familiar with sinking valley??

I just wish i would have taken pics but i was only 16 at the time and the whole digital era wasnt around yet...we prob didnt have film for the camera

[Atomixwx]

I lived just along 522 in Orbisonia (Huntingdon County) and was 9-years-old during the superstorm. I remember my parents running around like mad people for 2 days before the storm. Stocking up on food, kerosene and other supplies. We had lived in a 2 bedroom apartment and my bedroom was technically the "dining room" so I remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing both parents awake as they were taking turns shoveling the porch so the door didn't get snowed in. That's how hard it was snowing and how furious the winds were.

 

What was crazy about this was this presented the second natural event my parents were staring at in under a year. They had went to rebuild Miami after Andrew and I'm pretty sure they never imagined they would experience the winterized version of Andrew just several months later.

 

I don't think we ever lost power, or we may have and had a generator, I don't remember but I remember looking out my living room window and seeing 522 covered in FEET of snow. I can't imagine the pain and butthurt my parents had to go through then as our house was built on a hill and the steps up from the street were quite lengthy.

 

This post has me nostalgic for that place. It wasn't the greatest place in the world but it's where I grew up. A couple of years later we had moved. I've never been this nostalgic for this place in my entire life before now. Crazy.

 

Anyway, this was and will forever be the benchmark; the storm I compare each and every single meteorological event I will ever experience to. As much as I loved and will always remember 2/5/2010 and 2/9/2010, they couldn't hold "the superstorm"'s jock.

[MAG5035]

Wow, Euro looks like it continues to insist on a wintry start to next week.

 

On text data UNV has an inch of QPF easily as snow from Sunday afternoon into Sunday night (with two six hour frames of 0.42 and 0.48 respectively). Another 0.65" falls Monday night into early Tuesday morning with temps also supportive of probable snow. 

[Itstrainingtime]

20th anniversary of the 1993 Superstorm tomorrow. Was anyone here around to witness it? I was 8 years old at the time, in my hometown of Long Beach and vaguely remember it as a lot of snow but changing over to sleet/rain and then

refreezing into cement with coastal flooding as

well. I know from all the stories I was told during my time at PSU that it was one of the all time greats out in that area. Going through some of the maps, it must have been amazing with heavy

snow from 6am on 3/13 until well after midnight.

I was 28 at the time. I ended up with a 17" glacier on the ground. I had 6 hours of heavy, wind-driven snow/sleet combo that cut way back on my total accumulation but ended up preserving my snowpack for a week...a rarity in mid March.

[PennMan]

I really wish I had pics of it or knew someone that had pics. I was only turning 7 for this storm so I don't remember much beyond being angry it cancelled my 7th birthday party as well as a couple mental images of riding with my dad snow plowing really early in the storm before he dropped me off at my grandparents when it started getting too bad. I need hypnosis or something haha. 

 

I have heard the stories though, especially about the prolific drifting this storm produced as the wind factor of this storm was far greater than our other legendary storms to go with the very intense snowfall. When I had my summer job at the Bellwood PennDot shed I asked one of the guys about it once. Since you used to live down here I'd imagine your familiar with Sinking valley just over the mountain from Bellwood. I remember him saying it took over a week to reopen the roads out there. You can look at the archived data on wunderground and you'll see at stations like AOO, JST, and UNV that winds were sustained about 25-30 with gusts 35-45 from 10-11am on the 13th thru about the first half of the 14th. Temps also fell into the low teens for the later part of the storm as well. I'd kill to remember going through this storm. 

I was just a little kid as well, but I do remember being stranded at my grandparents' place in Snyder County for a few days. My parents didn't think it was really going to be that severe so we decided to visit for the weekend. At the time they lived on a dead end street and it was quite awhile until the roads were clear enough to get out. Somewhere in the vicinity of 30" fell.

[Voyager]

I was 28 at the time. I ended up with a 17" glacier on the ground. I had 6 hours of heavy, wind-driven snow/sleet combo that cut way back on my total accumulation but ended up preserving my snowpack for a week...a rarity in mid March.

 

That was pretty much the same scenario for the Lehigh Valley, where I lived back then. Although if I remember correctly, it was a few hours of heavy snow followed by a few hours of heavy sleet, finishing up with heavy snow again. Total was 17 inches.

[Itstrainingtime]

I also remember watching the Flyers game on Prism that afternoon. The game was stopped after the first period when the wind blew windows out in the old Spectrum.

[Vogan]

I am old enough to have memories from the snow storms of the '70s. The blizzard of 93 was so impressive on many levels. I was living in Lancaster Co. at the time and the wind was blowing snow sideways for hours. The only personal disappointment with this storm and the reason it ranks #2 on my all-time snow storm list (behind Jan '96) was the sleet that mixed in during the second half of the storm and impacted snow totals IMBY. It was an almost impossible storm to measure snow depth with all the drifting but I averaged 13" of very compacted snow. I would sign up for another one just like it in a heartbeat!

[JamieOber]

Wow, Euro looks like it continues to insist on a wintry start to next week.

 

On text data UNV has an inch of QPF easily as snow from Sunday afternoon into Sunday night (with two six hour frames of 0.42 and 0.48 respectively). Another 0.65" falls Monday night into early Tuesday morning with temps also supportive of probable snow. 

GFS vs. Euro again. GFS has a cutter. But both models are decidedly stormy and cold in the long range with no spring weather for the near future. 

 

What do you think of the snow squall threat today? 

[JamieOber]

My memories, posted before: 

 

My memories:

- Lots of people were laughing at this. I remember telling people three days ahead about it and just flat out being laughed at. They weren't laughing Saturday eve.

- I went for a walk at around 3:30 pm to go up to Mt. Washington's overlook in Pittsburgh. I was up there at around 10 and couldn't see the city. My walk this time was a lot harsher, and I was in peak physical condition at the time - no matter, this thing was draining my strength. The snow was whipping, among the hardest I have ever seen snow fall, and the winds were at least 30-40. Very, very cold, too. 

I lived on Grace St. in Mt. Washington, that ended at a fairly main street there that ran parallel to Grandview Ave (the main drag for views up there) and I was about to turn around when I heard a guy yelling "Hey Help Hey Help" over and over again to me. I could barely see him but he was like 100 feet away. I yelled back asking what was wrong and he said his neighbor was in labor and they needed help getting her to the hospital.

I made my way to him and discovered they lived up this one-block hill that lead up to Grandview - if you are familar, there are a lot of streets that do this up on Mt. Washington. When I got to the house, what a scene......they needed all the help they could get to try to turn this Bronco around so it could get down the street. This was a classic Pittsburgh street, narrow as hell. What a mess. They were told an ambulance couldn't get there in time. It was that out of control. 

We finally got the Bronco turned around and out into the street. At this point there was oh, about 15 inches or so on the street with drifts. I look up, and here comes the pregnant lady down their steps. She looked like a colorful wooly engorged tick being escorted by several slightly-less engorged wooly ticks. She was making these sheep-like noises from the pain, through her scarf-covered mouth. We helped her into the Bronco, and as she was being put in the wind was roaring. And off they went....they had to get down that freaking hill to Mercy Hospital. 

Later I found out they got there in time and baby was born. His name? Storm. No ****. 

- The Friday night before the storm, we decided to have a blizzard party and went to the state store. I have NEVER seen a liquor store with shelves that empty. We managed to buy some stuff, but it was crazy. Same at the beer distributer. 

- The blizzard party was awesome. We were doing snow angels in the middle of the street, drunk and high. Them's the days. 

- I remember on KDKA they put out a call in Westmoreland County for people with snowmobiles to go to different places to help look for shut-ins who needed help. 

Great storm. I measured 29 inches on Mt. Washington but it was impossible to measure.

[Wmsptwx]

Wish I could give a story but I dont remember it, was 3 at the time. I know my parents say they remember the winds and drifts most.

[canderson]

My wife's grandmother in Carlisle has a photo from 1993 on her fridge of her husband (wife's grandfather) on their roof above the garage digging DOWN to start to reach the gutter line.

[sauss06]

Damn, some of you are making me feel old. I was 30 during the super storm. As Jamie said, some people didn't want to listen. My wife and i use to go to a local pub every Friday for happy hour with our friends. We had decided we were not staying long because i wanted to stop at the store and get important stuff like beer, peanuts and potatoe chips. My friends too were leaving to stock up. Others at the pub were laughing, telling us we were crazy, you know the song and dance! the next time we saw them, the following Friday evening everyone was talking about he storm and how the weather people didn't give people enough warning etc. lolz..

 

The wind driven snow was a real b**ch. My FD handled 146 calls in less then 36 hours. After i did a shift i went home and couldn't get back to the station until Sunday night, there was no getting out my road. the guys who were on station, remained there with no sleep for over 24 hours, without help. When i got back Sunday night, i think i stayed for 2 straight days. I can't tell you how long it took just to shovel out hydrants. Many lost power in our area, in addition to building's, sheds, roofs etc collapsed.

One of the biggest things that stands out was the drifts, crazy ass drifts. at one point my wife went to let our Chocolate lab out, she said Jon we have a problem, i went to the back door and the snow was above the window of the door.

 

Edit to add- i'm not sure i ever shoveled so much in my life. Not only did i have an almost 100' driveway to shovel at my house, all the roofs i shoveled with the FD. once i got back to work, i think we shoveled there for 2 or 3 days straight.

[RitualOfTheTrout]

I really wish I had pics of it or knew someone that had pics. I was only turning 7 for this storm so I don't remember much beyond being angry it cancelled my 7th birthday party as well as a couple mental images of riding with my dad snow plowing really early in the storm before he dropped me off at my grandparents when it started getting too bad. I need hypnosis or something haha. 

 

I have heard the stories though, especially about the prolific drifting this storm produced as the wind factor of this storm was far greater than our other legendary storms to go with the very intense snowfall. When I had my summer job at the Bellwood PennDot shed I asked one of the guys about it once. Since you used to live down here I'd imagine your familiar with Sinking valley just over the mountain from Bellwood. I remember him saying it took over a week to reopen the roads out there. You can look at the archived data on wunderground and you'll see at stations like AOO, JST, and UNV that winds were sustained about 25-30 with gusts 35-45 from 10-11am on the 13th thru about the first half of the 14th. Temps also fell into the low teens for the later part of the storm as well. I'd kill to remember going through this storm. 

I was 11 at the time, and I remember the drifts were incredible... The hill side at my parents house was nearly leveled off, the drift was probably at least 6-7 feet high as the wind had a long area of flat to pick up snow. I remember tunneling it out and making an igloo, it was awesome. I also remember being outside during the day, before the winds really picked up, it was just pouring snow. After the storm I road with my dad to get kerosene and the road was only opened up enough for one lane, and looking out the window of the car sometimes the snow drifts were up to the level of the car window or higher. I also remember sled riding in t-shirt as the hill sides with drifts maintained snow pack for quite awhile as we headed into spring. I'd love to relive that now that I am older and would appreciate it more. At the time I had no clue just how special of an event it really was.

 

I remember the storm was foretasted pretty far out. My grade school teacher at the time made fun of Joe Denardo saying something along the lines of "Oh no, the snow blobs are coming to get us" and other banter to that effect. I didn't particularly like her, so it was awesome that she was so wrong. lol

[Itstrainingtime]

The Weather Channel ( which actually was good back then) did a great job with that storm. They were all over it the entire week leading up to the storm. It was also the storm that introduced me to the term "triple phaser)

People forget how cold it was after the storm. I had highs in the 30s...impressive cold for mid March with the sun out.

[JamieOber]

The Weather Channel ( which actually was good back then) did a great job with that storm. They were all over it the entire week leading up to the storm. It was also the storm that introduced me to the term "triple phaser)

People forget how cold it was after the storm. I had highs in the 30s...impressive cold for mid March with the sun out.

Pittsburgh's post storm low was -1.

[JamieOber]

Wonder if that snow squall will make it here? Looking on cams looks like Dubois got a coating from it. 

[Voyager]

I was 11 at the time, and I remember the drifts were incredible... The hill side at my parents house was nearly leveled off, the drift was probably at least 6-7 feet high as the wind had a long area of flat to pick up snow. I remember tunneling it out and making an igloo, it was awesome. I also remember being outside during the day, before the winds really picked up, it was just pouring snow.

 

You guys obviously got it better than we did in the Lehigh Valley. Had we not had pure sleet for nearly 6 hours, I think our totals would have rivaled, or even possibly beaten, the Blizzard of 96.

[Wmsptwx]

Loving the sun angle, even though its chilly out it is definitely enough to warm up my short walk between buildings.

[snowalot]

I am with SAUS06, you are all making me feel old as well. I was 30 also. Went to a friend's house to stay. I had just moved down here end of Feb for a job from Rochester, NY. Lived downtown Lancaster and I never saw the reaction that I saw down here with the run on the stores. I went out that Friday for lunch and the shelves were bare. Besides that, people were getting their various items ready for saving their parking spaces on the street. It literally blew my mind seeing the reaction. It seemed people thought they would be snowed in for weeks. Anyways, stayed at a friend's house and we had a great time. It definitely ranked up there, but Blizzard 96 is close just with the amount of snow that fell with that one and I lived through the Blizzard of 77 in Buffalo, NY that shut down the city for a couple of weeks - THAT was a winter to remember.

 

I also remember everyone blaming the new NY guy for bringing down the weather to Lancaster, PA. I have big shoulders so I was able to take it.

[CarlislePaWx]

Regarding March 1993...It seems I am the elder statesman beating out Sauss by 3 years.  I was 33 at the time.  And, by the looks of all your stories it seems like almost everyone was living in PA 20 years ago.  I was living in northern new jersey in a small town, Chatham, located in southeastern Morris county and approximately 15 miles west of Newark and about 20-25 miles west of NYC.  My experience was similar to many of yours.  However, I turned out to be unbelievably close to the storm center when it made its way from near Philly (it was inland by the time it reached their latitude) northeastward up through central NJ.

 

The day before (Friday) was a sunny, mild day with highs in the upper 40's.  I was working at my home office, seeing patients as usual.  I used one of the radio stations for the background music in my office.  Around 3:00pm or so I suddenly heard the emergency alert warning go off.  Now, back then, it almost never was used, rarely in fact for weather related events.  I stopped talking and just listened as the warnings about the impending blizzard came over the airwaves.  They talked about over a foot of snow, high winds, large drifts, etc., and that all people needed to be as prepared as possible and to heed all warnings and advisories.  Later that day I ran off to the market to stock up on supplies.  All my other weather friends along with myself were giddy with excitement over the storm.  We all knew how the storm had been progged to be a blockbuster for over a week before.  It was one of those rare times when the models locked on to a solution and then never wavered from it right up until the beginning.

 

Specifically, here's how the storm timeline unfolded at my home.  When the snow began around dawn on Saturday morning the temperature was around 20 degrees.  The intensity kept on increasing throughout the morning, and by 1:00pm I had recorded 13" of snow in only 7 hours.  It was breezy, but not ridiculously windy yet.  My temperature had dropped to 17 degrees by early afternoon.  My weather friends and I knew that the storm was progged to hug the coast on its way up towards us, so we knew there was likely going to be mixing issues as the storm got closer.  The low pressure kept dropping and dropping.  My Heakthkit 5001 weather station showed rapidly falling pressure especially as the afternoon progressed.  It kept dropping....29.70.....29.50....29.20.....29.00.....still dropping.  At around 1:00pm the lovely sound of pinging against the windows began as the snow transitioned over to total sleet.  And once the sleet was falling it kept falling...really heavily...for hours throughout the rest of the afternoon.  By early evening it was impossible to measure how much sleet had fallen on top of the over foot of snow, but I am guessing at least 5" of sleet had accumulated.  My pressure kept falling further, down to levels I had never recorded on my weather station before....28.80.........28.70....and then it began to slow down and almost stopped dropping.  At the same time my temperature began to suddenly rise rapidly back up to and through the twenties, reaching a high temperature of around 29 degrees at about the exact same time the pressure bottomed out at 969mb, or 28.64"!  It was still sleeting.  There was no freezing rain mixed in.  I was monitoring the other airport stations to try and track the location of the storm.  At the same time I peaked at 29 degrees, Newark airport, 15 east of me, reported a sudden and dramatic increase in their temp up to 38 degrees with plain rain falling.  My winds remained out of the north and northeast while Newark's winds were from the south.  The airport also reported a low pressure reading of around 967 millibars.  Within the next hour or so my temperature began to suddenly drop again and snow started mixing back in with the sleet.  Another hour later I was back over to all snow and my temp dropped back down to around 25 degrees.  Newark airport's winds backed around to the north, their temp plummeted back down below freezing, and they went back over from rain to snow.

 

Post storm analysis ended up showing that the center of the low did actually pass east of my home by like 8 or 9 miles and just a few miles west of Newark airport!  My memory of the remaining few hours of the storm are hazy now.  I think I recorded another 2 or 3 inches of snow back on top of the sleet.  I don't think my anemometer recorded any gusts higher than the 30's.

 

For me, personally, this storm definitely ranks up there in my all-time top 5.  It was the most intense storm pressure-wise of any storm I ever witnessed.  But from a total snowfall and temperature perspective, the January 1996 storm (in NJ) and the February 2003 (in PA) storms are at the top.  The January storm was the coldest start to a major storm I had ever seen with temps around 7 degrees as the snow began.....only peaking at 17 degrees near the end.  The Feb 2003 storm was around 10-11 degrees during a good chunk of that storm.  Both storms dumped about 24 inches and were the greatest storms for total snowfall for me until the Feb 5-6, 2010 storm eclipsed them with 27" and became the all-time accumulation winner for me,  But, temps for that storm weren't as cold as the previous storms had been.

 

I'll have to go back and find the videos I took of the superstorm.  I know I have video I shot of that storm, but it's on my old 8mm Sony tapes and I don't have a way to play those tapes back right now.

 

Thanks for reading my story.  It was fun reminiscing about it again, and it's really hard to believe it's been 20 years since that fateful Saturday in mid March.

[Wmsptwx]

Ok, on the rooting against snow deal, If a storm appeared to look like 93...or even 10+ I would def pull for it. However, a nuisance 3 inch slop to make everything a mud pit would stink.

[Voyager]

Thanks for reading my story.  It was fun reminiscing about it again, and it's really hard to believe it's been 20 years since that fateful Saturday in mid March.

 

Thanks for posting it. It was an enjoyable read. Other than the fact that you were much closer to the low pressure center, our stories, if I were as good a writer as you, and was able to recollect more of the events of that day, would be very similar.

[NortheastPAWx]

And so, 20 years to the day, a mini-blizzard is in progress right now. Snow blowing everywhere, somewhat obscuring the view of College Avenue from the Redifer Commons.

[JamieOber]

And so, 20 years to the day, a mini-blizzard is in progress right now. Snow blowing everywhere, somewhat obscuring the view of College Avenue from the Redifer Commons.

Yeah, quite the shock to people in my office not expecting it.