Time for a warm up & some gorgeous weather. Highs Fri. afternoon will reach 70 degrees...mid to upper 70s Sat. -- with a breezy west wind.... & near 80 degrees Sunday. There will be high pollen counts & an ever increasing wildfire risk.
No big storms on the horizon but it was 20 years ago when "the storm of the century" hammered Fl. & caused severe weather from Cuba to Canada. Records were set for:
** lowest air pressure (Gainesville included)
** highest sustained winds
** low temps.
** snowfall
The central pressure of the storm crashed to 960 milliabars/28.35" or the "equivalent" of a Cat. 2 hurricane. Severe storms, tornadoes, high winds & storm surge occurred in the "warm sector" while a blizzard raged on the "cold side". As much as half of a foot of snow fell as far south as the Fl. Panhandle with a rare true blizzard in Atlanta. Fl. was particularly hard hit with 11 tornadoes, 18,000 homes destroyed (combination of tornadoes, high winds, storm surge & flooding) & 47 deaths. The storm followed hurricane "Andrew" by just 7 months & resulted in 11 insurance companies going bankrupt. The satellite image below shows a squall line screaming east across Fl. as snow begins to blow to the north & west.
I was a television meteorologist in Cincinnati, Oh. at the time & clearly remember the storm & forecasting its effects on the Tri-State of Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana which were not all that severe. A few inches of wind-driven snow made for hazardous but not impossible travel. The much more severe impacts were 100+ miles to the east. Click **
here ** for an excellent case study of the tremendous storm by the University of Illinois..... **
here ** for a Fl. perspective from Bay News 9.... **
here ** for a summary from the snowy side at Birmingham, Al.....& **
here ** a full infra red satellite loop of the storm.
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