Deth

It was predicted by the models five days in advance, which wasn’t a thing that really happened back then. Obviously, the models and data have gotten a lot better now than they did back then.

A fascinating weather event I remember thoroughly enjoying being able to watch unfold was the 1993 Storm of the Century of 1993. Oh, how I’d truly love to see a repeat of that one, especially living here in Central Pennsylvania rather than just outside of Philadelphia. I’ve never seen it sleet as hard as it did that day when the last squall line came through, and I’ve never heard or seen wind like that since then, either.

The storm formed on March 12, 1993, over the Gulf of Mexico. It rapidly strengthened as it moved northward out of the Gulf and into northwest Florida.

A squall line and tornadoes crossed Florida and Cuba. The derecho produced straight-line wind gusts in excess of 100 mph in many areas as it crossed the peninsula ahead of the cold front. The storm system produced 11 tornadoes. It produced a storm surge higher than many hurricanes in areas along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

It dumped heavy snow, from six inches in the Florida panhandle to 60 inches in Tennessee. There were numerous broken records that day. I remember going to the mountains a couple of weeks later and there still being 5 foot drifts.

In Bensalem, we had something like a foot of snow and then drifting sleet with insane winds at times. Right about the time the center of the storm was passing over, we had a squall line with blinding sleet, thunder, lightning, and the strongest winds I can remember experiencing. It was cool watching the sleet blow and drift.

It was an enormous storm, with very low-pressure setting records up the East Coast as it continued deepening. At its peak, the superstorm was affecting Central America and Canada. We were lucky enough to be at the center of the storm as it passed over, but that did hurt us in the snow department since we got the changeover to sleep.