What's the most extreme winter weather you've ever witnesse?

[Opal storm]

A couple of years ago when I was living Pensacola I woke up Christmas morning and there was a light sleet/snow mix falling!

[Wnghs2007]

The Y2K Icestorm that happend in early January 2000. It was really scary.

[frankthetank]

Christmas Eve 2000 I remember leaving are Christmas party in my friends car that the heat didn't work. The temperature....was -26F... a record for that date in La Crosse, WI...


2 words... F...... Cold!

[Wnghs2007]

Christmas Eve 2000 I remember leaving are Christmas party in my friends car that the heat didn't work. The temperature....was -26F... a record for that date in La Crosse, WI...


2 words... F...... Cold!

OMG. That sounds pretty extreme. Did yall get home ok?

[Extremeweatherguy]

my worst event was the snowstorm of Jan. 2000 in Raleigh. We received 24" at my house with drifts to 3-6 feet! The city was shut down for days! The most amazing part, however, was that 12-18" of the snow fell in just FOUR hours (rare for areas not in the mountains). To make things worse, an ice storm followed a few days later and lows got as cold as about 0F. The snow finally melted about 2-3 weeks later...

[rsdoug1981]

I haven't seen very much extreme winter weather; however, I did live in upstate New York for about a year as a teenager. I moved there from Morgan City, LA...quite a shock. Although the winter of 94-95 was the second mildest on record upstate, there were a few cool events. The most memorable was the first lake effect snow squall. Lake effect squalls are in a league of there own in terms of heavy snowfall. It was like someone just took a bucket of snow and threw it at me. Three inches of snow in about 20 minutes. Very cool!

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

I've seen a lot of bad Winter & Fall WX in my time, living at the Eastern tip of North America. Here is a short list:

1. Storm of February 2nd to 3rd 2003; 12 hr of ice, adding up to 0.5 Inch of glaze, followed by 24 hr of blizzard conditions, gusts to 50 mph, freezing temps, & 18 inches of blinding snow.

2. Ice storm of March 2005; 12 hours of fog and heavy rain, followed by 12 hours of heavy icy rain, 0.5 - 0.75 inch of glaze, followed by freezing temps, gusts to 50 mph, during a 15.5 hour black out.

3. Blizzard of March 1984; 36 inches of blinding snow at my house!

4. Hybridstorm November 2001; sustained winds of 50 mph, peak gusts to 85 mph, for 24 hr!

5. Windstorm of November 1994; peak gusts up to 70 mph, for nearly 24 hr!

6. Ice storm January 1992; 0.5 inch of glaze

7. Superstorm 1993; 20 inches of blinding snow, for over 48 hrs!

8. Ice storm 1997; 0.5 Inch of glaze, and a 7 hr black out.

9. Blizzard of January 1999; 17.8 inches of blinding snow, and 50 mph wind gusts.

10. Santa storm 1994; heavy rain, and peak gusts to 60 mph for 14 hours, caused a transformer by my house to be knocked to the ground by a falling tree (something I wouldn't soon forget)

[bob rulz]

My most extreme storm began on Christmas Day 2003; it was the wettest Christmas on record (more than an inch of precipitation). By that evening, the heavy rain had turned to snow, and it didn't let up for about 2 days. By the next morning we already had a foot of snow, by mid-day we had maybe 18 inches, and by the time the first wave ended on December 27 we had about 28-30 inches of snow. Our car was completely snowed in, and the snow plows driving by to plow the continually-falling snow just shoved more snow up against the driveway. The car got stuck at least 4 times. Smaller snowstorms kept rolling through through the rest of December and into early January. Overnight on December 25/26 our power went out...and stayed out for FIVE DAYS. Our neighborhood always had power problems, but after this we finally got fed up, and the neighborhood petitioned Utah Power to come and fix our power. They fixed it that spring and now it only goes out during high wind events (it hasn't gone out for snow once since then, but to be fair we haven't had a very bad winter since then). Before that it went out for snow, heavy rain, wind...everything. By the end of our power outage the house was essentially frozen and it was hard to even stay there anymore. This was followed by one of the coldest Januaries on record. We set a record for the longest amount of time spent below freezing that January.

[Jim Cantore]

Blizzard of 2006, Thundersnow and 50mph with snow falling at 2-3 inches an hour.

[Scott Patterson]

I think the most extreme weather I've seen was in extremely high winds at high altitudes with windchills around -80. Below is a pretty good photo. I'm the one in front.



Where I live it gets pretty cold (record low for the area is -61 without windchill), but at least I can get in my warm house. It's different when you are outside in a storm on some mountain away from civilization.

Actually, the prize for the most extreme weather I have ever experienced actually was surprisingly in Colorado where they do not have high altitudes like the photo above. If anyone is interested, read my report below:

http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/1 ... ntain.html

I hope I never see that again!