By Matthew T. Eng, Offbeat NOVA
It is the middle of March. Today’s temperatures crept up to 74 degrees, and tomorrow’s will be similar. After a freezing and dreary winter filled with lots of rain, this warmup, albeit way in advance for my global warming consciousness, felt amazing.
Twenty-one years ago, however, the weather in Northern Virginia was anything but warm. A massive system from Florida to Maine dropped a foot of snow in this region. The warm air and moisture from the Gulf region hit the cold air from western Canada with a shallow barometric pressure that yielded terrifying weather results. The storm caused 11 tornados in Florida and over 200 deaths after its hurricane-force winds finished ripping through the East Coast and Canada on March 14th. According to some news reports, snow drifts in Northern Virginia measured upwards of 12 feet in height. The storm left thousands of travelers and citizens without heat and electricity for days.
The Superstorm of March ’93, sometimes referred to as the “Storm of the Century” or snowicane,” did not have as significant an impact as many previous or more recent snow events in the region. The most recent event, the snowstorm of 2016, dumped over two feet of snow into the area. However, according to Accuweather, that snowstorm was not a Category 5 storm on the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) scale. Accuweather’s article on the event said the 1993 blizzard was “one of the most devastating storms of the 20th century.”
Steve Marvill, a senior forecaster for Accuweather back in 1993, said in a Washington Post article that the event “had all the conditions for a powerful storm. It was as if there was a hurricane, but in the winter.”
It certainly felt like a hurricane to many who lived through it. At the Gov. Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge near Dahlgren, VA, the wind speed topped out at 73 mph. When the dust (and snow) settled, the storm caused nearly $6 billion in damage in 1993 USD. That’s over double the $12.8 billion in today’s money. That’s enough to build four new stadiums for the Commanders. That gives them four chances to win a game, right?
Offbeat NOVA 