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The Storm of the 20th Century was firing up on March 12th, 1993, as a potent storm system in the Gulf of Mexico, which computer models were forecasting to impact the East Coast as a significant snow and wind storm the next day. The Superstorm of 1993 brought significant snows and significant damage to much of the East Coast, with a total financial impact of between six and ten billion dollars, killing about 300 individuals in one of the deadliest winter storms in recent times.

In Philadelphia, the Superstorm brought a mixed bag of heavy snow, sleet, and some light rain for a time as the low pressure system tracked just east of Interstate 95 through the Mid Atlantic. You can check out all the observations from the storm, as well as some cool graphics from the Superstorm at Ray Martin's New Jersey Storm Archive. Martin is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Elko, NV, and has archived many great images from the Superstorm.

The Superstorm tracked from a landfall point near Apalachicola, FL, around 1 AM Saturday morning to a position near Salisbury, MD, around 7 PM Saturday night. The storm deepened to a remarkable pressure of 960 mb, equivalent of low end Category 3 hurricane.

Surface Map Graphics From Northeast Snowstorms CD-ROM

On satellite, the presentation was one of a classic storm system that wound up quickly and powerfully. You can see the extent of the storm's cold front into the Caribbean Sea, covering 35 degrees of latitude by the night of the 13th.

A search of YouTube will bring you a wide plethora of snowfall video, radar loops, and streaming video from The Weather Channel. Pittsburghers may remember this coverage of the storm as well.

As far as Philadelphia and vicinity was concerned, snowfall totals ranged from only a few inches along the coastline to as much as twenty inches in Harrisburg, with isolated amounts in the Poconos of up to three feet. Among the regional totals, Allentown received 18", Quakertown 17", and Millville received 13" of snowfall.

Phillyweather's Blog

The Storm Of The 20th Century

Phillyweather

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