Eva Miranda, 27, battles through howling wind and snow as she makes her way across the campus at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chuck Liddy)
Superstorm Sandy is most infamous for its coastal destruction in the Northeast.But Sandy also dumped prolific, damaging snow in the Appalachians.It was the only known time a snow forecast showed up in National Hurricane Center advisories.
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One of the most memorably bizarre aspects of Superstorm Sandy even ten years later isn't something normally associated with hurricanes.
Sandy will forever be remembered as the in modern times. Its massive storm surge and high winds devastated parts of the Northeast Seaboard.
But to some meteorologists, one of the most surreal parts of covering the storm was seeing the former tropical cyclone trigger a major snowstorm.
(Visit our Superstorm Sandy pagefor more coverage of the 10th anniversary.)
Sandy was the only tropical cyclone in which you could find within each National Hurricane Center advisory as it drew closer to land.
The superstorm prompted the first blizzard warnings for the central Appalachians from western Maryland to far western Virginia late on the afternoon of Oct. 28, just over 24 hours before landfall while Sandy was still a hurricane.
Map of watches and warnings issued by the National Weather Service forecast offices on Oct. 29, 2012. Areas in the Appalachians shaded red were blizzard warnings.
(NOAA/NWS)
As detailed nicely in , as Sandy approached the coast, colder air wrapped around the western side of its circulation. That air was just cold enough for snow, particularly at higher elevations.
Snow in itself is rare in hurricanes, but this marked Sandy’s transition from a hurricane to a type of storm you typically see attached to cold, warm and occluded fronts.
In essence, Sandy's core cooled, and its energy was being drawn more from the jet stream than from the ocean. That's why Sandy never "officially" made landfall as a hurricane in New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012.
Regardless of what meteorologists called it, Sandy's winds, surge and other impacts were truly to the level of a "superstorm".
(MORE: Why Sandy's Track Was Unprecedented)
The following afternoon, the weather map looked a bit upside down.
South to southwest winds from West Virginia were transporting colder - not warmer - air into western Pennsylvania. At the same time, warmer air was being pulled from northern New England into eastern Canada. Later that afternoon, Montreal reached 70 degrees.
Interactive radar and temperature map from weather.com on Oct. 30, 2012, at 1:30 p.m. EDT.
While Sandy was hammering the coast with high winds and devastating storm surge flooding, the wintry side of Sandy was dumping heavy snow on the southern and central Appalachians, with blizzard conditions in some areas.
Heavy snow fell from southwest Pennsylvania to the Smoky Mountains. Three feet of snow was recorded near Richwood, West Virginia, and on Wolf Laurel Mountain, North Carolina. Over 50 locations reported at least 1 foot of snow.
Snowfall from Superstorm Sandy from Oct. 29 - Nov. 1, 2012.
(NOAA)
Charleston, West Virginia, picked up 2 inches of snow in one hour, almost as much as their previous record for one October day. Their storm total of 10 inches set a new October record.
Bluefield and Elkins, West Virginia, each had their two snowiest October days on record Oct. 29 and 30.
West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency.
Vehicles were stranded on Interstate 68 in whiteout conditions, forcing a shutdown from just north of Morgantown, West Virginia, to the Maryland state line.
Roofs collapsed due to the weight of the snow in Nicholas County, West Virginia, east of Charleston.
Members of the West Virginia Army National Guard traveled to an apartment complex in Summersville, West Virginia, to assess the structural damage incurred after Superstorm Sandy brought over two feet of snow to the mountainous region.
(Staff Sgt. Debra Richardson/West Virginia Army National Guard)
Garrett County, Maryland, dug out from over 2 feet of snow. Over 70% of the county lost power, and Ocean City, Maryland, suffered damage to the city's iconic dock.
included a one-paragraph section regarding Sandy's "widespread heavy snow, exceptionally rare in association with a tropical cyclone or one having just lost its tropical characteristics."
If that wasn't enough, Winter Storm Athena brought snow and lingering cold to areas heavily damaged by Sandy just over a week later.
New York City reported 4.7 inches from the storm. More than 8 inches were reported on western Long Island.
Images from the Jersey Shore showed snow piled on debris left behind by Sandy a little more than a week earlier.
That cold weather also proved to be deadly.
About 50 deaths in the aftermath of Sandy hypothermia, falls by senior citizens or carbon monoxide poisoning from improper use of generators or other cooking devices during long-lasting power outages in the cold weather that followed Sandy.
Snow covers debris piles in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, Wednesday Nov. 7, 2012. Winter Storm Athena moved through the same areas of the Jersey Shore already devastated by Sandy.
(AP Photo/Wayne Perry)
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