Summer of 95
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Mixture of cloud and sunny spells all day here. A desperately unexciting day in other words.
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I think it must have been one of those "wet sleety stuff on the coast, snow inland" scenarios then. There was one just three days beforehand as well, with the morning of 18 March 2001 revealing no lying snow at my location, yet out of the front (west-facing) window, I could see a good deal of lying snow within about five miles. It happens quite often when winds are easterly, with lying snow at Newcastle and Gateshead and nothing at the coast.
Having said that, I remember March 2001 as a snowy month (as revealed by my posts in the lying snow in March thread), because the coastal strip had much heavy snowfall around the 1st/2nd, producing 8cm which then stuck around for a few days.
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That one on 17th-18th was interesting- I remember it being sleety wet stuff in the city centre, but where I was (only a mile or so out, at about 75m amsl) there was at least an inch lying. A marginal (altitude makes the difference) one I think.
Another memory I have of March 2001 in Newcastle is some absolute blizzards of graupel (I think that's what it was) in the first week, which came off the sea in cumulonimbus. I'd never known anything like that before anywhere, indeed I never saw it again up there and have not here.
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21 March 2001 featured one such clearance- I don't remember it very well because my neck of the woods saw the snow fail to settle (mainly because of being on the east coast and having a strong E wind), but to be fair some places definitely got some.
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Interesting, I was at university in Newcastle then and it certainly settled where I was living, in the west of the city (Fenham). That's why March 2001 sprang to mind.
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In the coastal area of South Tyneside, sleet and wet snow fell for several hours but did not generally settle.
Some students who had stayed over at Lancaster University reported about an inch of snow there, which hung around for about half an hour and then swiftly melted.
The only good example I recall while I was in Lancaster was 31 January 2003. Fronts brought milder air in from the NW, but an inch of snow stuck around for a couple of hours from the leading front.
Maybe the last really significant widespread snow event from a frontal battleground may have been back on 5-7 February 1996...
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I remember a couple in March 2001.
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Unfortunately not everywhere though. All we got was rain and sleet from that occasion here, it was just another marginal event. I couldnt believe it when it fell as rain, especially as we had just had such a cold day the day before.
Exactly my memories of New Years Eve 2003. The day had barely risen above freezing (closest we've come to an ice day since the last actual one in Jan 2002), we had been warned of snow, and what did we get? Hours of pouring rain
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Feb 92 was much more memorable in London. 6 inches of powder in covent garden, frequent snow showers on a bitter NE flow. marvellous.
those sunday afternoons were fun werent they. LS
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Feb 91 is perhaps what you're thinking of
Feb 92 was practically snowless across most of England, as was that whole 1991-2 winter.
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What I remember about it was John Kettley on Countryfile predicting the milder weather to flood in during late Tuesday indeed Rob McElwee said the milder air was coming during the Monday broadcasts. However it never really happened although the Thursday was milder than recently. John Kettley did the following Countryfile forecast and made the comment of the milder air didn't really succeeded but he said he was more confident that it would happen this time. Infact it didn't really happen to late Friday before the milder air reached most of England and Wales.
We got a reasonable snowfall late 22nd and into 23rd February. It started at about 10pm and snowed more or less non stop until 4pm when it just stopped all of a sudden. I woke up Wednesday morning expecting to see the snow thawing away but was pleasantly surprised to see a reasonable covering of about 4" with small drifts. I remembered clearing the driveway of snow.
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The second snowfall was the Tuesday then. Thanks
Just popped over to Wetterzentrale to look at the charts, what I see is a massive Atlantic low, an equally intense Greenland High, fairly meaty Scandi one and what looks like a secondary low forming off the big one (that was the "Channel Low" then).
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Anyone have any memories of this month, which although nothing like, 63, 79, or Jan 87, I nevertheless remember as one of the snowiest months of the 90s here?
The month started where the January had left off, mild and changeable, generally boring. Then on Valentine's Day (a Monday) I remember a proper cold easterly appearing out of nowhere. The day was biting cold, below freezing with a strong wind. Around 4pm it started to snow heavily, and settled straight away. As we were leaving school everyone was shrieking with delight, as we had all forgotten what it was like- snow had not settled in Shrewsbury for 3 years, save for a dusting the previous November which was not enough to count as proper snow really. Cue snowballs flying everywhere.
This snow continued all evening, left about 3" (7.5cm). Nothing spectacular in that, but it was so long since it had last happened it might as well have been 3'. Next day you couldn't move for snowballs.
On the Thursday-Friday this snow melted, and the weekend was cold but not cold enough. Next week was halfterm week, and on Tuesday (I think, might have been Monday) it started to snow again about 2pm. Once again it settled instantly.It came down heavily for several hours, and dumped around 5" (12.5cm- this was the last time we had a double-figure fall here in cms. In December 1995 one day had 15cms lying but that came from two separate falls.) Had it not been halfterm this would have closed schools- the 3" fall in March 1995 and 2" in Feb 1996 did.
The forecast that evening I recall well too- it showed the situation across the country, and said that it was 0C in Birmingham(?), and 10C in Bristol(?) which I thought was an amazing contrast. Was a Channel Low that had got further north than usual, pushing the warm sector into the south and giving us what they normally get from these lows.. As the wind was easterly the Welsh mountains didn't take all the snow from us either. This snow stuck through till the end of the week, then the last few days turned mild again.
What was notable about this month is that it came after several weeks of unusually mild weather, just like last Feb's easterly did. However the Valentine's Day 94 one was more than 5C colder, and the snow did not hesitate to setttle. And in both 1994 falls, the snow didn't melt in the day, despite the second one being the same time of year as last Feb's sleet/wet snow/melted in 2 hours stuff..
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Absolutely glorious day, warm at 24C but not excessively humid. The dry air's preventing the sort of sticky nights we tend to get at this time of year too, and meaning we've had less build up of cumulus. Perfect weather for outdoors (shame I'm stuck in the office
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The Feb 1996 event really is an amazing localised variation because this was frontal snow. It snowed here for 24 hours with an accumulation of around 18cm. Also the Dec 2000 event was frontal (well a polar low) and gave 9cm here.
Birmingham generally has a pretty high elevation and always does best when snow hits the Western Midlands.
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Hi Ian
I suppose it's because both came in from the west, here we often miss the heaviest precip. in those cases. From the north or east we can get quite a bit however.
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I've only been here since November 2002. We are quite high up be the Wrekin,i guess the clue to Shrewsbury's snow fall can be seen from the A5 heading towards Shrewsbury-the town is in quite a dip surrounded by higher areas. I've certainly noticed we get a lot more wind here too! Just think how much you go down heading towards Shrewsbury on the new A5
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But we are prone to stuff coming through the Cheshire Gap, like that snowfall on Xmas Day was. Trouble is it's not often cold enough. I wonder how much snow they get in Ironbridge or Bridgnorth- they're lower than Shrewsbury, and even more in "dips".
Going along the A5 you get that one steep hill just after it ceases to be the M54 (excellent views of the Welsh hills from there), but I'd only think it drops 250ft at most (and coming the other way, at the top of that it drops a bit again into Telford centre).
I've heard Worcester is even worse for snow than Shrewsbury, being much lower and having shelter from the north as well. I haven't noticed more wind in Telford, but I don't go there that often.
PS Did you get that storm on 19th June?
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I should imagine this year will see the lowest number of frosts ever in my location, so far this year I have recorded only 13 days which had one: 3 in January, 6 in February, 3 in March and 1 in April.
Ive never actually recorded an air frost before 19th October, so we're going to have to have a pretty cold November and December to prevent it being the lowest year.
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This year's airfrosts here in Shrewsbury:
January 2
February 9
March 8
April 3
May 2
Pretty amazing to have May the same as January (and April higher)!
Only need another 10 to have more than in 2002, I think we'll easily manage that even with a milder than average Oct-Nov-Dec.
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Shrewsbury seems to miss a lot of the snow,last Christmas we woke to some flakes here in Telford,when we got to Shrewsbury there was none,when we got to Oswestry(My sister lives there) there was also none. Then about 7pm it started to snow. By morning it was gone but on the high ground around Oswestry there was about 3 inches,Shrewsbury again had none as did Telford. Snow events of late seem very localised?
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Last Christmas Day it snowed and off but only lightly till about 7pm, when it started to settle quickly. 3cm fell in a couple of hours, and it lay all day on Boxing Day through till about midday on the 27th.
You don't need to tell me Shrewsbury misses a lot of the snow that Telford gets
The most frustrating one here was 5-6 Feb 1996 when it snowed for 24 hours, and left all of 2" in Shrewsbury. Oswestry had a foot, Telford I think about 6-8 inches (were you there then?). All the heavy bursts missed here, it was blowing a gale, yet the snow was too light. And that seemed very localised, (got much deeper north of Nesscliffe, RAF Shawbury reported 5" and that's only 8 miles away): Birmingham, Staffs and down in South Wales all had 6"+. Also late Dec 2000 we had just 1cm, most other places got 5-10. Oswestry is very hit and miss, it either does much better or much worse than here (as in March 1995) IME. Telford seeems to hog all the snow whatever happens, something which I've always found a mystery. How did Telford do in these winters I wonder:
1991-2 (no snow at all in Shrewsbury)
1992-3 (one day of snow showers in Feb, but no lying snow)
1999-0 (again no lying snow, a few sleety bits in December and April)?
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Glorious sunshine, blue sky with just a few cumulus. Warm now but got down to 7C last night.
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Late Jan 2002- took down a 100-ft tree a few hundred yards from where I live- heard an almighty crash in the night and there it was, lying in the road.
I agree about Xmas Eve 1997- that was a vicious one, caused a lot of power cuts round here.
Also 20th March 2004 had a bit of a bite, lots of branches down and difficult to stand up.
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I think it would be March '95?? I had just got a new car from Wolverhampton (which was a '94M! So that's how i'm remembering) When we hit the M54 @ Telford the snow had covered the Motorway,when we got home in Shrewsbury there was much less snow but it caried on and we got a good covering.
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There was about 3 inches in Shrewsbury in early March 1995 (overnight 2nd-3rd, from about 7pm-1am). I think Birmingham got a similar amount. But up in Oswestry, there was virtually nothing- I remember that well as it came as a real surprise. Also a 1cm cover here on the 7th.
Mid-March 1996 had lying snow here too, as did March 2001 and 12th March 2004 (just, started snowing heavily at 8am, had 2cm at 9am, was gone by 11).
2nd and 3rd March this year counted as snow-lying days in Shrewsbury, 1cm and 2cm respectively- but in both cases it had gone by noon.
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Produced impressive amounts of snow here in the Midlands (15cm+ over a wide area, up to 40 in places), and was largely unforecast. Just arrived suddenly overnight. I notice there's a 1040 high where the boring Iceland low normally is.
18-19th Nov last year was a near miss- it produced similar general conditions (torrential rain suddenly turning to snow) but needed to have been 2C or so colder (if it had happened a month later?) I notice there the Greenland and Azores highs have merged (sea not cold enough to N of Britain?)
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Absolutely tipping it down. Visibility down to about 2km.
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Raining all day
Currently 16c
1005 mb
Torrential downpour for 10 minutes half-hour ago.
Further heavy rain on its way, extremely dark clouds to South
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Tipping down again in Shrewsbury now
Gone back to very dark (from just "dark"
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December in July
12-13C with rain all day so far, varying between light and heavy.
But I can't ever recall such gloom at this time of year- it's hardly got light!
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Synoptic Patterns
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
N'ly or NW'ly can both give snow here, because of the Cheshire Gap. Easterly and SE'ly are also pretty good, providing it doesn't dry up before reaching us. December 1990-type situations are the best, shame they're so rare. NE-ly is less reliable because it has to get over the Peak District in addition to the already long land track.
Westerly is pretty much useless for any kind of heavy precipitation because of shelter from the Welsh mountains. In winter they (along with NW-lies) can be surprisingly sunny here though. SW-ly? Yuck! If they ever do manage to bring snow it nearly always turns to rain, and unlike W or NW-lies they are nearly always relentlessly overcast and murky.