Here’s what I’d like to see again,except that no one gets hurt of course:
During March 11 and 12, 1993, temperatures over much of the eastern United States began to drop as an
arctic high pressure system built over the
Midwest and
Great Plains. Concurrently, an
extratropical area of low pressure formed over Mexico along a
stationary front draped west to east. By the afternoon of March 12, a defined airmass boundary was present along the deepening low. An initial burst of convective precipitation off the southern coast of Texas (facilitated by the transport of tropical moisture into the region) this presumably enabled initial intensification of the surface feature on March 12. Supported by a strong split-polar
jet stream and a
shortwave trough, the nascent system
rapidly deepened.
[6] The system's central pressure fell to 991 mbar (29.26 inHg) by 00:00 UTC on March 13. A powerful low-level jet over eastern Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico enhanced a
cold frontextending from the low southward to the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Furthermore, the
subtropical jet stream was displaced unusually far south, reaching into the Pacific Ocean near Central America and extending toward Honduras and Jamaica. Intense
ageostrophic flow was noted over the southern United States, with winds flowing perpendicular to
isobars over
Louisiana.
[6]
As the area of low pressure moved through the central Gulf of Mexico, a short wave trough in the northern branch of the jet stream fused with the system in the southern stream, which further strengthened the surface low. A
squall linedeveloped along the system's
cold front, which moved rapidly across the eastern Gulf of Mexico through Florida and Cuba.
[6] The cyclone's center moved into north-west Florida early on the morning of March 13, with a significant
storm surge in the northwestern Florida peninsula that drowned several people. This initially caused the storm to be a blizzard but also cyclonic.
Barometric pressures recorded during the storm were low. Readings of 976.0 millibars (28.82 inHg) were recorded in
Tallahassee, Florida, and even lower readings of 960.0
millibars (28.35
inHg) were observed in New England. Low pressure records for March were set in areas of twelve states along the Eastern Seaboard,
[7] with all-time low pressure records set between Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.
[8] Snow began to spread over the eastern United States, and a large squall line moved from the Gulf of Mexico into Florida and Cuba. The storm system tracked up the East Coast during Saturday and into Canada by early Monday morning. In the storm's wake, unseasonably cold temperatures were recorded over the next day or two in the
Southeast.
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