March 13 Weather Summary

...1907... A storm produced a record 5.22 inches of rain in 24 hours at Cincinnati OH. (12th-13th)

...1924... Heavy wet snow blanketed a large part of northern and central Alabama. The snow clung to everything and caused a lot of damage and major interruptions in communications. Final accumulations ranged from 6.5 inches in Birmingham to 1.4 inches at Montgomery.

...1951... The state of Iowa experienced a record snowstorm. The storm buried Iowa City under 27 inches of snow.

...1953... An F4 tornado cut a 18 mile path through Haskell and Knox Counties in Texas. 17 people were killed and a 8 block area of Knox City was leveled.

...1977... Baltimore MD received an inch of rain in eight minutes.

...1987... A winter storm produced heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada Range of California, and the Lake Tahoe area of Nevada. Mount Rose NV received 18 inches of new snow.

...1988... Unseasonably cold weather prevailed from the Plateau Region to the Appalachians. Chadron NE, recently buried 33 inches of snow, was the cold spot in the nation with a low of 19 degrees below zero.

...1989... Residents of the southern U.S. viewed a once in a life-time display of the "Northern Lights". Unseasonably warm weather continued in the southwestern U.S. The record high of 88 degrees at Tucson AZ was their seventh in a row. In southwest Texas, the temperature at Sanderson soared from 46 degrees at 8 AM to 90 degrees at 11 AM.

...1990... The high temperature rose to 74 degrees at Newport, Rhode Island, shattering the previous record of 65 degrees, set back in 1927 and it was the earliest date for the temperature to reach 70 degrees + at the station.  Thunderstorms produced severe weather from northwest Texas to Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska during the day, and into the night. Severe thunderstorms spawned 59 tornadoes, including twenty-six strong or violent tornadoes, and there were about two hundred reports of large hail or damaging winds. There were forty-eight tornadoes in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, and some of the tornadoes in those three states were the strongest of record for so early in the season, and for so far northwest in the United States. The most powerful tornado of the day was one which tore through the central Kansas community of Hesston. The tornado killed two persons, injured sixty others, and caused 22 million dollars along its 67-mile path. The tornado had a life span of two hours. Another tornado tracked 124 miles across southeastern Nebraska injuring eight persons and causing more than five million dollars damage during its three hour life span.

...1993... The "Great Super Storm Blizzard of '93" clobbered the eastern U.S. on this day and produced perhaps the largest swath of heavy snow ever recorded. Heavy snow was driven to the Gulf Coast with 3 inches falling at Mobile. 13 inches blanketed Birmingham, Alabama to set not only a new 24 hour snowfall record for any month, but also set a record for maximum snow depth, maximum snow for a single storm, and maximum snow for a single month. Tremendous snowfall amounts occurred in the Appalachians. Mount Leconte in Tennessee recorded an incredible 60 inches. Mount Mitchell in Tennessee recorded an incredible 60 inches. Mount Mitchell in North Carolina was not far behind with 50 inches. Practically every official weather station in West Virginia set a new 24 hour record snowfall. Further to the north, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania measured 25 inches, Albany, New York checked in with 27 inches, and Syracuse, New York was buried under 43 inches. The major population corridor from Washington, DC to Boston, Massachusetts was not spared this time as all the big cities got about a foot of snow before a changeover to rain rather large amount of thunderstorm activity accompanied the heavy snow. Winds to hurricane force in gusts were widespread. Boston recorded a gust to 81 mph, the highest wind gust at the location since Hurricane Edna in 1954. At Newport, Rhode Island, 5 weather records were broken.  2.51 inches of liquid precipitation, 8.6 inches of snow, a low barometer of 28.50 inches and a wind gust of 61 mph.   Numerous cities in the South and Mid Atlantic recorded their lowest barometric pressure ever as the storm bottomed out at 960 millibars (28.35 inches) over Chesapeake Bay. 208 people were killed by the storm and total damage was estimated at 6 billion dollars -- the costliest extra tropical storm in history.

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