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Arch Stanton

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Posts posted by Arch Stanton

  1. I'm unable to view the Jack Scott forecast but no problem with the Michael Fish one - it wasn't that one. I remember the forecast was for the upcoming night and following day - those magnetic symbols for

    snow (2 flakes) were all over England & Wales for the whole night - It may well have been Jack Scott presenting it?

    Ah well, at least I'm not alone on this - there have been plenty more let downs but a most of them were a lot more marginal than this particular 'nailed on' event!

  2. Thanks, that's really interesting.

    If it was the beginning of 1980 then even a brief northerly had the majority of England & Wales under under heavy snow forecast, you just don't see things like that happening now, I bet the southerly extent of

    arctic sea ice was a lot more pronounced back then which mean't any weather coming from the North was that much colder in its origin?

     

  3. 5 hours ago, General Cluster said:

    Welcome to NW, Arch... and what a familiar tale you tell!:oldlaugh:

    I do recall (v. early January 1980, I believe) forecasts of an upcoming 5-day northerly wind being expected to bring heavy, drifting snow, persistent frosts to pretty-much the entire country... Well, that was Sunday night's forecast anyhow; the reality -- 20-minutes' light sleet, as westerlies pushed all the cold air away, first thing Monday morning -- was rather different...

    I was gutted!:oldlaugh:

    It could well have been that date, there definitely was no school the next day so it was either on a weekend or xmas holidays - the winds must have been something else that night for so many mature trees to be felled like that.

    Anyway, it wasn't too long before Dec 81 and Jan 82 happened - those 2 months will stick in my memory for ever, I remember my 3 mates & me walking the streets as it began to fall about 9pm (Jan 3rd - it was the fine powdery type of snow that

    was drifting into the curbs of the streets - the next morning was a whiteout, visibility was no more than 100yrds it snowed like that on and off for the next 48hrs (there was a snow drift in my garden that curled all the way up to the roof so 20ft at least) 

    My junior school was closed for a month 

    Beautiful memories...

    • Like 2
  4. I remember watching the weather forecast after the 9 o' Clock news on BBC1 and there were heavy snow symbols plastered all over England & Wales for the night ahead.

    I can remember lamp post watching from various windows until about 11pm but I didn't see a flake, it was still dry; it didn't really matter as the thought of waking up to a winter wonderland scene was just so exciting - the prospect of several hours of heavy snow over night

    at my home (back then) in South Wales (624ft asl). To this day I just don't understand how the met office could get a forecast so wrong because when I woke up and looked out of the window - the mountain on the opposite side of the valley

    was lush green in colour, the disappointment for a school kid obsessed with snow has stuck with me all these years!

    That morning I jumped on my bike and headed up to my local park and found dozens of trees felled like match sticks!  To this day I don't know what happened and would love to see some synoptic charts of that night.

    I wish I could be specific about the year - I think it was around 1979-1980...

     

    • Like 3
  5. 3 minutes ago, Mizzle said:

    Welcome. It's a great forum with experts, super amateurs, learners, newbies and lurkers all enjoying that strangely exciting interest call meteorology. You certainly picked a great day to join - scorching here in NE Hants.

    Thanks Mizzle, I've been reading this site for years so better late than never I guess.

    31.0 now and its been very gusty this afternoon with clouds building up - usually a sign of some electrical activity. 

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