The Snowfalls Of Early February 1996.. 10 Years On

[Weather-history]

The Countryfile forecast by Richard Edgar for the first week of Feb '96 was memorable with the comment "snow coming at us on a number of occasions this week"

The cold weather from late January 1996 continued into February as high pressure sat over the UK. On the 6th, an occlusion system approached the west of the UK threatening a change to much milder weather across the UK. However, pressure began to increase to the east of the UK and this prevented the occlusion advancing and the system became stalled over the west of the UK on the evening of the 6th. Heavy snowfalls fell right across western and central parts of the mainland but conditions were particularly severe in SW Scotland and parts of Cumbria, where depths of snow were approaching 50cm. A state of emergency was declared in SW Scotland and many drivers stranded on the A74 had to be rescued. Whitehaven in Cumbria was virtually cut off and workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant had to spent the night there as they were stranded. Conditions elsewhere were less severe but the inenvitable travel chaos ensued. By the evening of the 7th, the snow finally died out and it remained cold and snowbound until the 9th with further snowfalls at times before a vigorous depression finally brought a thaw and milder temperatures. The snowfalls turned out to be some of the heaviest in the west since the winter of 1947, whilst the far east largely missed out.

The driveway being dug out

Edited February 3, 2006 by Mr_Data

[acbrixton]

A couple of points recalled from that winter:

1. Certainly cold in London with some severe frosts and probably the odd ice day in late Dec/early Jan,

2. Although I saw snow on 19 separate days there was never more than a covering of 1/2" and often rather less than that.

Regards

ACB

[frogesque]

That winter was very memorable for me as it's the only time I've seen nacreous clouds. It was on the evening of February 16-17, 1996, bitterly cold with hard frost on top of a little snow that was still lying. So beautifull and I'll never forget it.

[Thundery wintry showers]

The North East didn't seem to get much snow out of the 5-7 February 1996 battleground, it seems that the front stalled mainly over the west. That said, I remember a couple of inches or so of lying snow early on the 7th, before it melted during the day.

The main snow event that month in my local area happened later, around the 19th-21st.

[Summer of 95]

Aah this was such a disappointment here B)

The band of heavy snow started pushing in on the Monday afternoon, yet seemed to be deliberately avoiding Shrewsbury! (I remember the radar, the yellows and reds were wrapping themselves every side of us but not over us). We never got more than light snow, even though it snowed for about 12 hours and was windy too. It took 3-4 hours before it even began to produce notable accumulations, by morning on the Tuesday it had struggled up to 6cm while Oswestry had 25, Telford and Birmingham around 10-15, and I remember reports of 35cm+ from the Wrexham area.

Easily the biggest letdown of my weather-watching career, the forecasters had promised "six to nine inches". The biggest snowfall that winter was in the week before Christmas when at one stage we had 15cm lying, there was also one at the end of January when we got more than I had hoped for (5cm out of one of those easterlies that usually blankets the SE and sticks two fingers up to everywhere else) a dusting on the 26th Feb and lying snow to a max of 3cm on 12-14 MAr.

[Weather-history]

TWS, Glasgow got almost no snow from the 5-7 February event, and that's only 20 miles east of me. So you had no chance mate!! B)

Odd because the the Beeb forecast that night said Glasgow recorded 18cm of snow and a news item showed Glasgow with snow cover and it snowing

[kar999]

10 Years ago in the Midlands:

Midlands ice hell gets worse Originally published: February 7, 1996 Express & Star

West Midlanders spent today recovering from the coldest night of the winter and heaviest snow falls for more than five years.

And Express & Star weatherman John Warner has warned: "More is on the way."

Temperatures in parts of the region dropped to -9C last night as people continued to battle through the heaviest snowfall since 1990.

But the coldest place in Britain was Madley, in Hereford and Worcester, where temperetures plunged to a biting -11.3C overnight.

Mr Warner warned that snow would fall on Friday then thaw and return next week with 50-60mph winds.

(Full article on link above)

[frozen_north]

Damn you yet again Mr Data ( :blink: :o ), I do believe you may be right, but it would also depend where in Glasgow that reading of 18cm was taken (altitude was everything in that cold spell)! I had friends who lived in the south side at the time who couldn't believe that the snow was so deep with me, while they only had a few inches. I remember the snow took a longer time to settle in Glasgow and other low lying areas locally, and just to be a pedant, 18cm is next to nothing compared to 30 inches or more! But perhaps "next to nothing" wasn't the best turn of phrase from me.

The 18cm were probably recorded at Glasgow Airport (Bishopton). As all of Glasgow readings comes from that weather station which is run by the Met Office.

[Thundery wintry showers]

It would have been Abbotsinch back then- Abbotsinch closed in mid 1999 and was replaced by Bishopton.

[drgl]

10 Years ago in the Midlands:

Midlands ice hell gets worse Originally published: February 7, 1996 Express & Star

West Midlanders spent today recovering from the coldest night of the winter and heaviest snow falls for more than five years.

And Express & Star weatherman John Warner has warned: "More is on the way."

Temperatures in parts of the region dropped to -9C last night as people continued to battle through the heaviest snowfall since 1990.

But the coldest place in Britain was Madley, in Hereford and Worcester, where temperetures plunged to a biting -11.3C overnight.

Mr Warner warned that snow would fall on Friday then thaw and return next week with 50-60mph winds.

(Full article on link above)

Joh Warner-possibly the worse forcaster EVER-I wouldn't trust him to sit on a toilet seat the correct way!!

[johnholmes]

Joh Warner-possibly the worse forcaster EVER-I wouldn't trust him to sit on a toilet seat the correct way!!

oh dear; not a fan then??!!

[Cloudburst]

Joh Warner-possibly the worse forcaster EVER-I wouldn't trust him to sit on a toilet seat the correct way!!

[drgl]

oh dear; not a fan then??!!

lol-no not really!! He stated the obvious when it was already happening and rarely "forcast" anything!!

[Arrows]

Well he's only going on what the models sat surely, and more than one forcaster will write the script for the forcasts.