25 Years Ago Today...

[GoKart Mozart]

On Sunday April 26th 1981 my father and myself spent the morning shovelling (not sweeping) snow off our front drive in Coseley West Midlands c.600 ft amsl. which had fallen overnight. I was absolutely gobsmacked at the time, and it remains the latest time in the year I can remember deep disruptive snow falling, although snow did fall and stick here at Keele in May 1997. It did melt quickly once it had stopped and was all gone, sadly, by school on Monday morning. This snowfall was widespread and well documented and I guess other people remember it too..

Ian

[Methuselah]

I remember it well too...Milton Keynes (of all places) was hit by a 7 hour blizzard of wet snow on the Saturday night. It took about 3 days @2C before it had all melted!

[Sunshine]

I was 4 months old at the time, and April 26th was the day of my christening, my parents decided to go ahead with it despite the snow, and all the guests arrived on time.

Was it as good as the December 8th 1990 snowfall in the midlands.

Edited April 26, 2006 by Sunshine

[GoKart Mozart]

If people require further reading the journal Weather, April 1982, Volume 37 no 4 has a not too scientific (thankfully for me) and very informative article `Heavy rainfall and Snowstorms 23-26 April 1981' by S.D. Burt pages 108-115.

Sometimes it is useful to be a librarian!

Re 8 December 1990 - I was living in Stoke on Trent then, and was prevented from coming to work because the buses stopped running up the hill to Keele, apparently the University was cut off most of the weekend. I guess it was comparable.

Ian

[reef]

Quite an impressive cold snap for late-April, unfortunately it happened before I was born. It seems that it was the result of a Greenland high, along with a deep low across central southern England.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119810422.gif

They really dont make cold pooling in April like they used too!:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00219810422.gif

This is what probably caused the most snow, as a low pressure moved across into the cold air and stalled:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119810425.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00219810424.gif

[johnholmes]

I remember it well. My home was in Cheshire at the time and I tried to drive over to my parents in Chesterfield that evening but was turned back by a police road block in a village called Disley, about 600ft up. No snow there but from about 800ft the next day it was very impressive, snowbanks either side of the road at least 3-4 ft deep, and the roads, apart from well above 1000ft, absolute torrents of water.

John