Winter Hurricanes...yes they do exist!!!

[iceangel]

I found this article on the Farmers Almanac Website. The person who posted it, found it somewhere else...

I HAD MOVED UP TO CHARLOTTE IN 1984 WITH MY LOVELY WIFE,AND HAD LEFT THE BEACH LIFE ALONG WITH IT'S HUMID AND STICKY CLIMATE TO THE PIEDMONT WHERE I WOULD HAVE A BETTER CHANCE FOR SOME SNOW,BUT LITTLE DID I KNOW I WAS GOING TO MISS THE MOST EXCITING TIME OF MY LIFE IN THE YEARS TO COME...1989 SEPTEMBER 22 OUR FRIEND HURRICANE HUGO DECIDED TO VIA THROUGH COLUMBIA,SC THEN TO CHARLOTTE,NC WITH ITS 90 MPH GUST LEAVING US WITHOUT POWER FOR 14 DAYS. WHO WOULD THINK,A HURRICANE 200 MILES INLAND........WOW!!!...LITTLE DID I KNOW COME A FEW DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS THAT SAME YEAR A WINTER HURRICANE FUELED BY A POTENT JETSTREAM WOULD SEND SNOW ALL THE WAY TO FLORIDA AND DUMP MEGA SNOW UP THE EAST COAST...I REMEMBER TALKING TO MY DAD ABOUT HOW HE COULDN'T GET THE CAR OUT OF THE DRIVE WAY IN WILMINGTON,NC....OF ALL PLACES,THE AREA I LEFT BECAUSE OF NO SNOW GOT MORE SNOW THAN WE DID IN THE PIEDMONT OF THAT YEAR.....WOW.......FRIGID COLD TEMPS. FOLLOWED WITH SINGLE DIDGITS IN THE WESTERN PART OF THE STATE OF NC.......SNOW FELL AT JACSONVILLE,FLA SHUTTING THE AIRPORT DOWN.....FANCY THAT??........WOW....THIS IS AN ARTICLE THAT BACKS UP WHAT I'M SAYING.......


In 1989 An historic arctic outbreak spread to the Gulf Coast Region, and a total of 122 cities across the central and eastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date. Forty-one of those cities reported record lows for the month of December, with some cities breaking December records established the previous morning. Morning lows of 11 degrees at New Orleans LA and Lake Charles LA, 4 degrees below zero at San Angelo TX, and 26 degrees below zero at Topeka KS, established all-time records for those four locations. Yankton SD was the cold spot in the nation with a morning low of 31 degrees below zero. A storm system moving across the Florida peninsula and along the Southern Atlantic Coast produced high winds and record snows along the Carolina coast. Snowfall totals of 15 inches at Wilmington NC and 13.3 inches at Cape Hatteras NC were all-time records for those two locations. Gale force winds, gusting to 60 mph, produced waves thirty-four feet high off the coast of North Carolina, and whipped the heavy snow into drifts up to eight feet high. The storm resulted in the first white Christmas of record from northeastern Florida to North Carolina.

[Valkhorn]

I'd love to see weather maps or weather graphics of this. I cannot find any.

[Cookiely]

I'd love to see weather maps or weather graphics of this. I cannot find any.

I've been googling for an hour and haven't found any, but did find some fascinating articles on the storm.
http://home.earthlink.net/~divegeeked/florida.htm
These young men were insane!

[brunota2003]

Yep, the Christmas of 1989, we got three feet of snow here in Havelock, NC, inbetween New Bern and Morehead City, NC!!!

[TreasureIslandFLGal]

Yeah I remember seeing a movie about that! It seems that we can blame that storm on Mother Nature's sons... Heat Miser and Cold Miser. 'Ya see, their mom, Mother Nature, made them make an agreement in order help Ms. Claus. For a day, it was to be warm at the north pole and in exchange, it could be cold and have snow in the south!

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

The March 1993 Storm was basically a Major Winter Hurricane at
about Category 3 Intensity

[Brent]

The pre-Christmas 1989 storm plunged the whole Eastern half of the country into record cold... I believe it was below zero down into AL/GA.

[terstorm1012]

I think '89 was the year we had snow for Thanksgiving in Philly------but there wasn't a white Christmas. cold, but no snow.

[MaximilianRs]

I believe the superstorm of 93 was the most intense winterstorm on record. Wind speeds were over 100mph in florida and a 15ft storm surge accompanied it. I think it killed 243 or so people.

[gtalum]

The pre-Christmas 1989 storm plunged the whole Eastern half of the country into record cold... I believe it was below zero down into AL/GA.

We were in Sarasota on vacation at the time, and there was a thin skim of ice on the saltwater canal behind our vacation home!

[PTrackerLA]

We got down to the single digits in December 1989 along with some snow. I remember the ice being so thick on a nearby lake that you could walk across it and there was even someone with ice skates! Probably won't see that again anytime soon in south Louisiana.

[f5]

DEC 1989 had an arctic outbreak only second to the one in 1899 in which one year later in 1900 Galveston got wiped off the map

[decgirl66]

I remember that winter! Becasue of the demand for heat, the power company would turn the power off for about 45 min-hour, then on for a while..off, on, off, on...made it hard to cook!

[nequad]

I lived through this storm. I live on the Outer Banks. I wouldn't call it a hurricane...

In any case...I was 15 at the time and had always been a big snow lover since the 2 blizzards of 1980. This one was special, no doubt about it. It snowed for 36 hours at my house...ending around sunset on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning I awoke to
20 inches of snow.

The site below has archived daily official U.S. Weather maps dating back to 1871. You might need to download a plugin to view the maps...but it's well worth it for any weather buff who likes to study old maps.

Enjoy...



http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/dwm/dat ... _maps.html