Your Worst Winter Storms

[Category 5]

I've asked this in years past, but it's a new year, we have new people, and now we can include last years storms.

My list

1. Blizzard of 1996: Nothing comes near it. I lived in Philly, the whole city was shut down, literally. 30.7" of snow. It's my first memory of a major weather event.

2. Presidents Day Storm of 2003: 21" of snow, I remember it well. Note, if it didn't turn to sleet on monday, we'd of hit 2 feet. It took 1 month for it all to melt.

3. Blizzard of 2006: The only time I'm certain I saw Thundersnow AND Blizzard conditions. Winds were at least 30-40mph sustained for a good time gusting to 50mph. 13" of snow from it. Unlike the Presidents day storm, this one was melted by the end of that week (5 days I believe). I remember the forecasts for 3-6" of snow that thursday night, then by friday night, 8-14". Then it hit on saturday afternoon and lasted into sunday morning.

4. Blizzard of 2005: I remember reading the forecasts for 12-16", I remember being disappointed when we got the low end (12.5"). Other then that, there really wasn't anything special about it.

5. Valentines Day 2007: We might have gotten 2" of snow and I think I'm being generous with that estimate. However, this wasn't a snowstorm, this was an icestorm. Snow changed to sleet, then to freezing rain, the back to sleet, then mixed with freezing rain. The roads looked like a chocolate glazed donut. The land sparkled like a crystal. I was proud of myself, I didn't fall once. Needless to say, I had to surprise my girlfriend a day late. It's something we can always look back on, the ice storm on our first Valentines day together.

Honorable mentions

Last Storm of the century December 30th 2000
The Carolina Crusher January 25th 2000
"The Spring Mess" April 14-16th 2007


*The Superstorm of March 1993 sadly can't make this list, I was only 3 and much to my dismay, have no memories of it.

[PTPatrick]

I was in the superstorm of 93, the carolina crusher(rocky mount, nc, 18 inches...stuck in cheap motel)...and of course...the Christmas Blizzards of Denver 2006....27 inches followed by 10 a week later...that snow was around til almost march....

[Extremeweatherguy]

My biggest winter storm would have to be the January 2000 Raleigh Blizzard. For a place that rarely gets more than a couple of inches of snow (if even) from each storm, that one sure caught everyone off guard. The forecast when I went to bed was "1-4" of snow"...but when I woke up there was 24" on the ground with drifts to 4-5 feet in some areas. It was insane! The fact that so much snow could fall in 12 hours in a place like central NC was amazing. To add to that, the cold airmass (capable of bringing a low of 1˚ at the airport during the coldest morning) kept the snow around for weeks and a few additional light snowfalls and freezing rain events added to the mess in the days to come. The city was shut down for days and local schools were out for over a week. It was the city's worst snow storm in 107 years.





http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ReleaseImages/20030807/blizz2000.jpg&imgrefurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2003/2003080715315.html&h=529&w=719&sz=72&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=jcIojc8CUas65M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJanuary%2B2000%2Bcarolina%2Bblizzard%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
^^link to where I found the pictures^^

[RL3AO]

Halloween blizzard (1991)

[cctxhurricanewatcher]

Biggest snowstorm I've ever been in. South Texas Christmas 2004 6 to 15 inch reports were common.

[andyidaho]

My biggest winter storm would have to be the January 2000 Raleigh Blizzard. For a place that rarely gets more than a couple of inches of snow (if even) from each storm, that one sure caught everyone off guard. The forecast when I went to bed was "1-4" of snow"...but when I woke up there was 24" on the ground with drifts to 4-5 feet in some areas. It was insane! The fact that so much snow could fall in 12 hours in a place like central NC was amazing. To add to that, the cold airmass (capable of bringing a low of 1˚ at the airport during the coldest morning) kept the snow around for weeks and a few additional light snowfalls and freezing rain events added to the mess in the days to come. The city was shut down for days and local schools were out for over a week. It was the cities worst snow storm in 107 years.





http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ReleaseImages/20030807/blizz2000.jpg&imgrefurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2003/2003080715315.html&h=529&w=719&sz=72&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=jcIojc8CUas65M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJanuary%2B2000%2Bcarolina%2Bblizzard%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
^^link to where I found the pictures^^

WOW! That's a lot of snow!

[Tstormwatcher]

Blizzard of 1980 in Virginia Beach in early March.
Blizzard of 1996, got stuck in a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains. The storm hit Sunday, unable to get out until Tuesday, had to hike 4 miles thru drifts of up to 6 feet to get to nearest plowed road. Got vehicles back 2 weeks later.

[PTPatrick]

I can definately concur with what EWG is saying...that snow storm in NC was so unexecpted. I had taken a trip up to DC with 3 freinds. It had been quite cold and snow was on the ground up in DC. We could have actually been on a bus with our group but we wanted to stay a day extra. So we left the DC about 6:00 in the evening expecting to drive all night back to Tallhassee for classes in the AM. We were busy touring and such so none of us even had watched a weather report (which was crazy for me, but I really didnt have time as I was only in DC for 48 hours or so). So anyway...we are happily driving along 95 and start hitting flurries around Richmond and then good snows...which really caught us off gaurd. By the time we crossed into north carolina we could not see the road for all the snow and there were no other car lights in site...and certainly not plows. We crawled about 30 mph to an exit and Rocky Mount. I got out of the car at an open gas station where I noticed a state trooper sitting in his car and went and tapped his window. i was like, "we are traveling though back to school and Florida and were wondering if you had any idea when this is expected to let up...we got classes in the morning"...The trooper was like, "um...this is one of the worst storms this area has ever seen...get a room." So we pulled off into a hotel and went to bed with 6-7 inches on the ground and wake up to a waist high drift against the door and about 18-20'' accum. It was NUTS. We were in a subaru legacy with bad tires and brakes as well, which didnt help. Fortunately the snow ended at mid-day...the plows were out and after about 2 hours of trying to get the car out of the parking lot we got back on 95 headed toward florida.

[ohiostorm]

1. President's Day Storm 2003: This storm just sticks out to me. It wasn't considered a blizzard here in Eastern Ohio but how long it snowed was amazing. It had to have snowed for a good 20 hours. It just wouldn't stop. We ended up with a total of 23 inches of snow. People were suprised how much we really ended up getting. Forecasts were not even close. The county just to my south had almost 3 feet. That's how much difference there was. I remember taking my 4wheeler out in the back yard trying to drive in it but it wouldn't move. I had a 6 foot drift back there and wanted to slam my 4 wheeler into it just for fun but couldn't get enough speed.

2. Blizzard of 1996: This one is up there for me because I remember going to sleep that night hearing the mets in Pittsburgh say we could expect 1 to 3 inches of snow. I woke up and looked outside and said to myself, "Yeah we got 3 inches." Walked outside and it was up to my knees. Remember that I was only 12 at the time. I think we ended up with around 16 inches. Week or so late, we had the Flood of 1996. Was my first look at a real Ohio River Flood. I still have a scrapbook of it.

3. Storm of the Century 1993: I have to put in the Superstorm of 1993. I was only 9 so I don't remember too much of it. I have video tape of me outside playing in it barely able to walk. I know we had close to 2 feet of snow from it. I wish I was a tad older so I could've experienced it with my knowledge I have today of weather.

[PTPatrick]

Speaking of snowing for a long time...the blizzard here in denver last december seemed to never end. It started snowing around day break on wednesday and it was 2 pm thursday before the snow finally stopped...although only a couple inches of snow actually fell on thursday as it was very light for most of the day.

[Ed Mahmoud]

I missed 5 straight days of 8th grade in Catholic school in February 1978 for the big snow, Southeast Nassau County.

Two weeks prior, went to bed, snowing, but forecast was for change to rain, never happened, 13 inches. Happiest three weeks of my young life...


Both storms written up in the Ucellini and Koscin N.E. Winter Storm monograph from AMS.

[cpdaman]

this is a great topic , the carolina crusher sounds like an amazing storm wow

for me, the two biggest memory's i have of winter storms (sorry there is 2) is

1. 1997 April fools day Blizzard the day before was in the mid to upper 60's

the next day (nite actually) the snow began falling hard by late evening and boston got a foot in a four hour period (25.3 total) WOW and this was not fluffy snow, this was heavy roof collapsing WET SNOW. in spring! http://www.thebostonchannel.com/weather ... s&psp=news

2. The great nor'easter of december 11, 1992. This was a beast of a storm and as i remember it i had opened the back screen door that led to my deck and the winds were blowing so hard that i was in a bit of a trance. no wonder the NWS called this one of the most epic storms of all time. my house in SE mass got only about 3 or so inches of snow. later that day i went to my dad's house in providence and we decided to go up to jeromith hill in N. rhode island to go sledding, i remember my awe driving up to the hill, when i got out of the car, there was over 2 feet of snow on the ground and at the top of the giant hill (812 feet) there seemed to be well over that it was crazy for such a small difference in elevation and distance to = 2 feet of snow.

[CrazyC83]

Not a snowstorm, but Ice Storm '98 was undoubtedly my worst winter storm...

[tomboudreau]

2. The great nor'easter of december 11, 1992. This was a beast of a storm and as i remember it i had opened the back screen door that led to my deck and the winds were blowing so hard that i was in a bit of a trance. no wonder the NWS called this one of the most epic storms of all time. my house in SE mass got only about 3 or so inches of snow. later that day i went to my dad's house in providence and we decided to go up to jeromith hill in N. rhode island to go sledding, i remember my awe driving up to the hill, when i got out of the car, there was over 2 feet of snow on the ground and at the top of the giant hill (812 feet) there seemed to be well over that it was crazy for such a small difference in elevation and distance to = 2 feet of snow.

This is probably number 1 on my list. I as in high school at the time. Where we lived didn't have a high school, so I went to the next town over in CT. The town was lower in elevation so it rained for most of the morning, but around noon, it changed over to snow. They let us out of school early that day. It took us almsot 2 hours to go the 12 miles to get home as we were going up in elevation. My dad said it had not rained all day at home and it provided it as we had close 11 inches of snow. It snowed very hard for almost 2 days it seemed like, and we ended up with close to 36 inches of snow on the ground. We had to have someone come in with a bucket loader and clear out our driveway because it was the amount of snow and driftig that had taken place. We had piles of snow close to 10 to 12 feet because of this storm. It was unreal.

My number 2 storm would be the blizzard of 96. Just the shear amount of snow that feel from that storm.

My number 3 storm would be the Superstorm of 93. I was on a church retreat for the weekend this storm hit. We went from heavy snowfall and high winds to heavy sleet and high winds. It was a joy to walk from building to building and getting hit in the face by the sleet that was falling in winds close to 50 miles per hour. Luckily the buildings were only 4 feet between, so we werent outside in it very long.

[combellack]

I am with Crazy on the ice storm being the worst, no power for a couple weeks and about 9 cm of ice on everything what a mess. I wasn't in the worst hit area and just south east of ottawa huge metal hydro transmission towers literall crumpled under the weight of 12 cm of ice. Honerable mention goes to a localizes snowstorm one year later in march, Ottawa got about 20 cm snow 20 mm ice and 20 mm rain but just west into parts of lanark and renfrew county we got 60-70 cm and the world just diasapeared. It took a week to get all the local roads open again and i am just lad it melted quickly.
Mark

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

my worst winter storm was when saint petersburg florida
dropped to 29 degrees in january of 2003 with very windy conditions.
But other then that
I saw no winter weather.