[mikewx]

Who on here over the age of 22 doesn't remember the Blizzard of 1993? It almost seems like yesterday. I am amazed at the strides that have been made in meteorology and communications since that time. Having said that, it was the first time I remember long range computer models predicting a significant snow storm several days in advance with any degree of accuracy.

There have been threads on this forum in the past about this historic storm, but I thought this would be a great time to request newer members to share their stories, memories, photos, and videos. I wonder if anyone on here was near Walnut Grove, neat the Etowah/Blount County, Alabama line, for example. They had 20" of snow!

I was in Huntsville and we received 7" officially. That was the one time in my life that I had the chance to witness thundersnow. During prior anniversaries of this event, most people did not have access to high speed internet or have methods of uploading video.

I uploaded my home video from March 12 and 13, 1993 and am in the process of creating a blog entry that is full of resources looking back at this storm. Some of these will be gleaned from the internet and some will be my own resources.

If anyone else has any home video of this storm, I would be more than happy to help save this to DVD and/or upload it to YouTube. This was a very rare event and it needs to be documented as well as possible before time gets away from us. I would hate to see thousands of interesting VHS tapes of this storm disentegrate without being preserved in another format.

This post has been edited by mikewx: 11 March 2008 - 02:32 PM

[Chaser_24]

I do remember this like it was yesterday. I had just turned 8 years old. My parents were headed to Tuscaloosa for Family Weekend with my Aunt who was attending the University of Alabama and I was staying with my other Aunt for the night. They never bothered to tell me it was supposed to snow. I woke up on Saturday morning (Yes, I slept through the howling winds, I'm a HEAVY sleeper) and discovered that we had nearly 6 inches down here in Eufaula. Thinking back, and without looking at a track of the low, I believe the winds were blowing across the lake from the East, so that may have enhanced the snowfall a bit. It was a miserable time though, we didn't have power at my house for nearly 3 days. I had a goldfish and he FROZE in his bowl. The water froze SOLID. I can't remember a time when I've seen so much snow with my own eyes. Wish it would do it again... just... without the power loss and what-not.

[lyngo]

I wish I did have video of that event but we didn't have a camcorder at the time "you know the ones that were so big you had to put them on your shoulder to film"! I'm sure I have photos somewhere.....

[South AL Wx]

Something I sent in to the NWS 5 years ago, the 10th Anniversity of the blizzard:

I was in the third-grade at Glencoe Elementary School when the storm hit. I remember local TV meteorologists saying that there would likely be heavy snow that night, but I didn't think we would get too much. I remember most of my family also saying that it would probably be "no big deal", but were we in for one huge surprise.

The snow started falling heavily at my house about 6:30 PM on that Friday Night. I remember going out to measure the snow at about 8:00, and there was already 2-3 inches on the ground. By about 10, the wind picked up dramatically. I remember looking out my back door and seeing sheets of snow being blown by the wind. I never thought the snow would end. Then, when I was brushing my teeth at about 10:30, something I had never seen and probably will never see again happened: I saw a flash of lightning and then heard a loud clap of thunder during a period of very heavy snow. It almost scared me to death. About 5 minutes after that, the power went off, and it would not come back on until the following Thursday or Friday. That night, my mom, dad, 3-year-old sister, and I slept in the living room in front of the fireplace to stay warm.

Early Saturday morning, I looked out the window and could not believe the amount of snow on the ground. I measured 16 inches in my front yard, and built a snowman. The rest of the day, we just stay in the living room and talked....

...We probably will never see another winter storm like the Blizzard of 1993. I personally like snow, but would not like to see that much snow again.

For more stories and pictures: http://www.srh.noaa...._1993/index.php

I don't think my family has any video of the blizzard, but we do have a lot of pictures from the event (somewhere, lol). I need to dig them out again.

This post has been edited by South AL Wx: 11 March 2008 - 02:16 PM

[thundersnow]

It was the beginning of Spring Break in my senior year in high school. But, I got hit with a bad case of the flu that weekend.

Living about 20 miles west of Nashville, we had howling winds but all of 2 inches of snowfall. You had to be south and east of Nashville to see the big snows from that system.

Some of my classmates were snowbound in Alabama and Georgia on their way to Florida for Spring Break.

[Vic]

I had just moved here from OKC six weeks before and was living in the Riverbend Apartments in Gadsden. I had 20" of snow, while my daughter on the mountain had 22". I was out of power 3 days, the daughter on Lookout Mtn for a week, the daughter in Coates Bend for 2 weeks; but my son lived by a substation and was only out 4 hours. We all spent the next few days there sledding and playing Rook. Here's a pic from my apartment.

This post has been edited by Vic: 11 March 2008 - 03:15 PM

[PerryW]

Here are a few old pics I snapped using a Polaroid Instamatic camera the day after the blizzard (3/14/93) at my home in Douglasville, Georgia:

[mikewx]

Wow, what awesome pictures! Vic, The 22" was on which mountain? I cannot even fathom 22" of snow. As I said, we did have 7 in Huntsville but that seems like nothing compared to places just 75 miles to my southeast.

My dad told me the day before that my prediction of snow was wrong. He said "no accumulation". Friday afternoon we were having a snowball fight and he owned up!

[SWL]

I was only 4 so I don't have much memory of it, but I do have a little. All I remember is feet high snow drifts in the front yard, the roads completely snow-covered and deserted, and us walking to a neighbor's house. My mom was pregnant with my sister(time sure does fly). Can you imagine a storm like that today with the internet and 24-hour news?

[ARCC]

About the same here, just bits and pieces, what stuck with me was the lightning and thunder with the snow, and falling into a ditch covered with a 4 foot drift. Walked right into it and ended up over a foot under the snow.

[Vic]

Wow, what awesome pictures! Vic, The 22" was on which mountain?

Lookout Mtn, a mile or two above Noccalula Falls.

[Tagat]

I was about to turn 20 in March '93. I was at my gilfriends house in Talladega when it started. I left about 11 o'clock that night and it was coming down pretty good. She did not want me to leave but I wanted to drive in it so bad so I did. Got home about 12 am(only lived 10 min from her house) roads where getting really bad. I had a 1978 Buick La'Saber 4 door, let the air out of the back tires to make it home. Did not get to see my gilfriend for about a 4 days. God I loved that storm. 18 inches in my yard.I had some video(yup big VHS Camcorder),but the tape has gotten lost somewhere over the years.Aaaahh the memories.

[Alias47]

Who on here over the age of 22 doesn't remember the Blizzard of 1993? It almost seems like yesterday. I am amazed at the strides that have been made in meteorology and communications since that time. Having said that, it was the first time I remember long range computer models predicting a significant snow storm several days in advance with any degree of accuracy.

There have been threads on this forum in the past about this historic storm, but I thought this would be a great time to request newer members to share their stories, memories, photos, and videos. I wonder if anyone on here was near Walnut Grove, neat the Etowah/Blount County, Alabama line, for example. They had 20" of snow!

I was in Huntsville and we received 7" officially. That was the one time in my life that I had the chance to witness thundersnow. During prior anniversaries of this event, most people did not have access to high speed internet or have methods of uploading video.

I uploaded my home video from March 12 and 13, 1993 and am in the process of creating a blog entry that is full of resources looking back at this storm. Some of these will be gleaned from the internet and some will be my own resources.

If anyone else has any home video of this storm, I would be more than happy to help save this to DVD and/or upload it to YouTube. This was a very rare event and it needs to be documented as well as possible before time gets away from us. I would hate to see thousands of interesting VHS tapes of this storm disentegrate without being preserved in another format.

Hi Mike....the Walnut Grove request...that would be me I'm 32 and I totally remember that snow. I was right there...on the Etowah/Blount County line. 20" of snow and totally helpless for 2 weeks. If it hadn't been for my grandmother who had gas heat...I don't know what we would have done. A total of 8 people and 1 cat all together in one house....ahhhhh. My brother spent days taking those trapped on Hwy 278 to our local store to get supplies, because he was the only around with a 4 wheel drive.

[SWL]

Mike Wilhelm does it again!

Original coverage with James and Dan Satterfield!

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=-8xt7uAnI_M (Part 1 of 4)

This post has been edited by SWL: 12 March 2008 - 03:40 PM

[Stormlover]

Mike Wilhelm does it again!

Original coverage with James and Dan Satterfield!

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=-8xt7uAnI_M (Part 1 of 4)

that was great to watch

[WxRookie]

I was 18 when the blizzard hit and I had no idea it was coming. My grandmother woke me up around 9:30am Sat. morning and I was so upset because I thought I had over slept and was late for work.

My grandmother told me not to worry about going to work. I asked why she told me to look out the window and what I saw was a Winter Wonderland . I was in complete awe of the scene. My grandparents told me this is the worst snowstorm they had ever seen.

Later that day I had to walk to my Aunt's house and get some kerosene and I walked through some drifts up to my chin. Back then I was in very good shape and athletic built and it took all I had to walk the half mile to my aunt's house.

When I got back I just collapsed with exhaustion and slept for a couple of hours before I had the energy to get out and play in it.

I can't remember exactly how many inches we had but I think it was around 16"-18". I'll never forget it. Ever since I have been a weather fan (especially winter weather)

[nv4Phil]

From the part 4 clip...

James Spann: "...now this composites all of the National Weather Service radar sites together, and uh. and it just dawned on me that I don't have any shoes on, but that's okay, it's early in the morning, and you'll excuse me. Here's the back edge of the heavy snow."

:ROFL:

[Huntsville-Weather]

I remember walking outside during that event, and rememberi it fairly well, even though I was only 2.

We were watching TV on Generator Power Atop Chapman Mountain.
I remember walking outside and feeling the ice like little needles hitting my face.

[Tennesseestorm]

Well, I had just turned 17, but I still remember it well. I think we have some home video of it somewhere, but only Lord knows where.

I think we had 12 inches of snow at my house. I think the power was off for a few days, but I cannot recall how long.

I know in the blizzard of 96' (I think we got about 11 inches) our power was out for about 2 weeks and we are only about 3 miles from the city limits! I thought I was literally going to die. No hot water, no showers, no hot food, no way to even get the cars out of the driveway- we had no 4wd at the time, it was aweful. We had to get my uncle to get my dad in his 4wd truck to take dad to the store from time to time. What was bad is that our some of the neighbors in the neighborhood down the road had power about a week before we did. Shortly after, my grandmother was placed on oxygen (lived next door) and our part of the neighboorhood was placed on a priority list because of it, but we never had a snow/outage like that since then. Grandma is gone sadly- she passed away in 2005, so we may have to wait longer if this happens in the future, but the house we built on the same property we are on now (built in 2000) has a fireplace and the other house we moved out did not, so we can at least huddle around the fireplace should it happen again.

I hope not though. If the power was to go out for days, I wish it would at work... for like 4 weeks!

This post has been edited by Tennesseestorm: 12 March 2008 - 10:02 PM

[Chaser_24]

From the part 4 clip...

James Spann: "...now this composites all of the National Weather Service radar sites together, and uh. and it just dawned on me that I don't have any shoes on, but that's okay, it's early in the morning, and you'll excuse me. Here's the back edge of the heavy snow."

:ROFL:

LMAO Yeah, I had to pause the video because I was laughing so hard I didn't want to miss anything he was saying.

[SWL]

Does anyone have actual NWS statements from the event? Birmingham used to have a webpage with all the statements from days before it hit til it was over but the link is broken now. I found one statement from the afternoon of the 12th I had posted here on the board in 2005, but the others I can't find.

[South AL Wx]

Here's something neat: observations from KBHM during the event courtesy of Tim Coleman on the 33/40 blog:



J.B Elliott decoded one of the obs and commented on it:

BHM SA 1150 W4X 1/4TSW+BS 002/27/27/3316/953 R05VR29V40 T N LTL MOVMT OCNL LTGIC SNOINCR 1/9/12 31081 27 90412 20115

TRANSLATION
BHM SA 1150…Birmingham sequence aviation at 5:50 am, CST (1150 Greenwich Mean Time)

W4X…Ceiling.W means indefinate ceiling 400 feet and X means obscured.

1/4TSW+BS…1/4 mile horizontal visibility. TSW+BS means thunderstorm with heavy snow shower and blowing snow.

002/27/27/3316/953…Sea level 1002 millibars, temperature/dew point both 27, wind from 330 degrees at 16 knots (from NW about 18 mph) altimeter 953 (sea level pressure 29.53 inches.

R05VR29V40…Runway 5 visual range (how far a pilot can see down the runway) was variable and the amounts in hundreds of feet

T N LTL OCNL LTGIC…Thunderstorm north of the station. LTL means little movement. OCNL LTGIC means occasional lightning in clouds.

SNOINCR 1/9/12 31081 27 90412 20115…Lots of packed information here It translates snow increase 1 inch last hour, 9 inches last 6 hours and 12 inches storm total so far…310 is pressure tendency (rising) the 81 in with that is the amount of rain (in this case melted snow) and 27 is the low temperature so far. 90412 means there is 12 inches of snow on the ground. 20115 is the 24 hour precipitation (1.15 inches water equivalent)

Before I got through typing this, I decided few, if any, would be interested in all of this and I started to delete it. However, my little fingers are numb so I will post it anyway. One great thing about this blog, if you see something that you are not interested in you can scroll by it in milliseconds!

PS: The above format of coded weather observations is no longer in use. A number of years ago, the USA adopted the METAR system which is used world-wide. I sure am glad I had retired from the NWS before that happened.

This post has been edited by South AL Wx: 13 March 2008 - 11:14 AM