Snowed in: 20 years ago, region buried in record snow

BLIZZARD OF ’93Watch Channel 3 today at 6 p.m. for another look back at the “Blizzard of ’93,” and catch up with one of the “blizzard babies” now finishing his college degree.

METEOROLOGISTS SPLIT ON SNOW DEPTH

Just days after the city was buried under the snow, meteorologists began debating just how much of it there actually was.A 1993 article stated that National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Pollock thought something was wrong with the official record of 20 inches.Paul Barys said he was skeptical, too.”The chances of breaking a record by 8 inches like that is pretty enormous. That’s real difficult to do. So I knew it was wrong,” he said.Barys said he called the Weather Service to ask what would be the official record.The man he spoke with replied uncertainly — 20 inches.The next day, Barys called the NWS office again and spoke with Pollock.Barys said he told Pollock he thought the man had measured wrong.”He goes, ‘I know. Alan made a mistake. … He took a yard stick and stuck it in a snow drift,'” Barys said.Barys said that when taking official measurements, meteorologist are expected to take at least three readings and average those numbers out.”You gotta take a minimum of three and he took one,” he said.Wrong though it is, the record still stands.”That’s what we measured, that’s what we put down,” he said.Barys said he doesn’t know exactly how much the city received, but he thinks it was close to 15 inches.”I had estimated, because I figured the Weather Service would get it right,” he said, laughing.- Staff Report