December 1981-January 1982

[Don]

2 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

I spent most of those years in a mild fortress. 

If you spent those years in a mild fortress, I dread to think what the fortress is like today?! 

[Norrance]

18 hours ago, Don said:

The month of cold zonality which produced the goods for northern areas that's for sure!  Don't remember January 1984 at all weather wise, so imagine it was cold rain for much of the south?!

From Trevor Harleys weather below.  As you can see snow lay for 30 days in the month in Perthshire(Kindrogan), 20 days in the central lowlands, down to 6 in Manchester and only 1 in London. It also lay well into February in my home area in Highland Perthshire. 

1984 A westerly month, but it was very wintry in the north.The month was very wet: the wettest January since 1948 in England and Wales. Snowy over Scotland and Northern Ireland. A violent gale in the Midlands on the 11th, and another on the 13th gave a gust of 104 mph in the NE England. On the 13th, the north suffered prolonged snow showers and strong winds. There was a destructive tornado in Doncaster on the 14th, and lightning in Leeds. It was very cold in Scotland: there was a minimum of -23.6C at Grantown-on-Spey on the morning of the 20th, and -20.6C at Aviemore, followed by a maximum of only -8C at Tummel Bridge the next day. More snow in the north on the 21st. On the 23rd snow lay 65 cm deep in parts of Scotland, with many places cut off. Snow lay for 30 days of the month at Kindrogan, 20 days at Glasgow and Edinburgh, but only 6 at Manchester , and just one in London. Another tornado, with large hail, hit Teignmouth on the 26th. It was milder than average in the south.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

21 hours ago, Don said:

The month of cold zonality which produced the goods for northern areas that's for sure!  Don't remember January 1984 at all weather wise, so imagine it was cold rain for much of the south?!

An exact same setup in 2023 though, would be so much warmer, and no snow at all low levels south, and less in Scotland than in '84

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

An exact same setup in 2023 though, would be so much warmer, and no snow at all low levels south, and less in Scotland than in '84

The last cold zonality winter was 14-15, not as extreme as Jan 84, but second hal Jan, first half Feb brought a number of light snowfalls here, albeit temporary cover night only.

 

[Don]

1 hour ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

An exact same setup in 2023 though, would be so much warmer, and no snow at all low levels south, and less in Scotland than in '84

Of course and an exact setup like January 1987 would be less cold too in 2023 but would still be pretty chilly!

Edited November 11, 2022 by Don

[damianslaw]

16 minutes ago, Don said:

Of course and an exact setup like January 1987 would be less cold too in 2023 but would still be pretty chilly!

Remember late Feb 18, early Mar 18 though, record cold on 1 March... had that synoptic happened a month earlier possibly coukd have rivalled 1987! Cold can still happen!

[Don]

1 minute ago, damianslaw said:

Remember late Feb 18, early Mar 18 though, record cold on 1 March... had that synoptic happened a month earlier possibly coukd have rivalled 1987! Cold can still happen!

Oh yes, very true!

[damianslaw]

1 minute ago, Don said:

Oh yes, very true!

Yes some places are seeing record cold still, notably North America, just the cold cards never fall into UK hands, but will do from time to time still. 

[Don]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

The last cold zonality winter was 14-15, not as extreme as Jan 84, but second hal Jan, first half Feb brought a number of light snowfalls here, albeit temporary cover night only.

 

I had a temporary covering of snow early on February 4th 2015, but it had completely gone by lunchtime.

[Summer8906]

On 11/11/2022 at 00:43, Don said:

The month of cold zonality which produced the goods for northern areas that's for sure!  Don't remember January 1984 at all weather wise, so imagine it was cold rain for much of the south?!

Wet, dull and at times windy, from what I remember. Not even cold rain, mild for much of the time. There was a memorable cold NW-ly plunge around mid-month on a Sunday, with Cbs visible over the channel, and then a slightly longer two or three days of cold and frosty perhaps the weekend after, but that, if I remember right, was it.

Notable for two consecutive cancellations of school games due to major storms, which was the only such occurrence during my time at school, IIRC. (We went cross-country running in the snow in Feb 1986, for example).

Indeed winter 1983/84 was the only completely snowless winter from 1980/1 to 1986/7, inclusive.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Summer8906

[MP-R]

On 11/11/2022 at 22:53, damianslaw said:

Yes some places are seeing record cold still, notably North America, just the cold cards never fall into UK hands, but will do from time to time still. 

Indeed... almost everywhere else is seeing record cold at some point, yet we seem to manage to avoid it pretty much every time despite our geographical position. As you say, had Feb/Mar '18 been Jan/Feb '18, it would have been even more for the history books!

[hillbilly]

3 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Wet, dull and at times windy, from what I remember. Not even cold rain, mild for much of the time. There was a memorable cold NW-ly plunge around mid-month on a Sunday, with Cbs visible over the channel, and then a slightly longer two or three days of cold and frosty perhaps the weekend after, but that, if I remember right, was it.

Notable for two consecutive cancellations of school games due to major storms, which was the only such occurrence during my time at school, IIRC. (We went cross-country running in the snow in Feb 1986, for example).

Indeed winter 1983/84 was the only completely snowless winter from 1980/1 to 1986/7, inclusive.

You obviously missed out on the enormous dumping of snow we had in the third week,5 ft drifts were almost continuous the whole length of our 1/3 mile long lane,off school for 2 days.However we must have had a more strict PE teacher than yours as Friday 13th brought us a storm that blew my uncles farm shed down the field and i thought we wouldnt be going Absailing for sure but i thought wrong!

[Sunny76]

4 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Wet, dull and at times windy, from what I remember. Not even cold rain, mild for much of the time. There was a memorable cold NW-ly plunge around mid-month on a Sunday, with Cbs visible over the channel, and then a slightly longer two or three days of cold and frosty perhaps the weekend after, but that, if I remember right, was it.

Notable for two consecutive cancellations of school games due to major storms, which was the only such occurrence during my time at school, IIRC. (We went cross-country running in the snow in Feb 1986, for example).

Indeed winter 1983/84 was the only completely snowless winter from 1980/1 to 1986/7, inclusive.

80/81 was relatively snowless, at least down south.

[Summer8906]

4 hours ago, hillbilly said:

You obviously missed out on the enormous dumping of snow we had in the third week,5 ft drifts were almost continuous the whole length of our 1/3 mile long lane,off school for 2 days.However we must have had a more strict PE teacher than yours as Friday 13th brought us a storm that blew my uncles farm shed down the field and i thought we wouldnt be going Absailing for sure but i thought wrong!

This was in Sussex/Surrey, to clarify things. Down south it was probably second only to 1988 in the 80s for a combination of above-average temps, wet and snowless.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

80/81 was relatively snowless, at least down south.

Relatively, but not absolutely.

We had a good snow cover on the morning of Sun 22 Feb 1981, though it thawed by afternoon. 1983/4 by contrast had absolute zilch.

[A Face like Thunder]

Ch 5 have another of their interesting weather programmes on Saturday at 9pm. This one is entitled 'The Great White Christmas of 81'. Let's hope they don't pull the plug on this one as they did recently with the programme on the 1928 floods.

[Weather-history]

On 06/12/2023 at 09:18, A Face like Thunder said:

Ch 5 have another of their interesting weather programmes on Saturday at 9pm. This one is entitled 'The Great White Christmas of 81'. Let's hope they don't pull the plug on this one as they did recently with the programme on the 1928 floods.

They did one for winter 1981-82 called the Big Snow of 82 which was shown at the start of January this year. December 1981 featured heavily in that. They have not just changed the title of this  because it is near Christmas to "Great White Christmas of '81"  ?

In other words is it just a repeat that has been simply retitled? 

Seems odd that they would make another documentary on this winter. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Weather-history

[MarkW]

21st December 1979 - Friday before Christmas - a lot of snow in London. As I mentioned elsewhere, almost 6 years ago on this forum! No snow in West Mids, me and my dad drove to Crystal Palace for a football match v West Brom. 7.30 KO. It was called off at 6.30 and we got there at 6.50. Blizzards from M1/M6 interchange onwards.

[damianslaw]

Sadly too young to remember this spell, but seen photos of deep snow in the ground in the run up to christmas. There was a thaw of sorts post christmas, with the first few days of Jan being milder. A very snowy December, overall not bettered since, 2009 nearly rivalled it but the snow came much later then.

Cold wise on a par with 2010 nearly, but not the same degree of cold.

[Summer8906]

What's interesting about this spell (which I mostly remember but am a bit vague about at times) is its very understated arrival.

Seems high pressure in the Atlantic retreated southwestwards allowing a general northwesterly type in, but this had many frontal systems and warm sectors at first keeping it rather mild for the first week.

Then on the 8th the heavy snow fell from the occlusion at the back of one of these systems and the cold air got in, but it wasn't really a dramatic northerly plunge, just a slip southeastwards of some cold Arctic air. This then ground to a halt over this area of Europe and allowed the cold to get locked in.

I do remember a heavy snowfall one afternoon, was returning from the village school. This was the first snow and was in NW Sussex, I'm assuming this was the 8th.

I also remember the temporary thaw around the 14th and the storm of overnight 13th/14th not producing much snow, mostly rain, despite being forecast to snow and produce some really severe blizzards; it was forecast to be an incredibly severe event so was a bit of a disappointment!

I also remember the snow being somewhat patchy in advance of this storm (so was looking forward to a topup), was there maybe a more minor partial thaw before that, sometime between the 8th and 13th?

I remember much ice on the pavements in the run up to Christmas. However I don't remember any other heavy snowfall event until the Jan 9th event, though the weather reports suggest one or more might have happened 21st-24th. Anyone remember any further snow events for the south after the initial one on the 8th?

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Summer8906

[A Face like Thunder]

Friday 11th Dec was bad, bad, bad in Surrey, leading to the cancellation of a farewell party at work as staff made a quick getaway to try and get home before they were stranded by the snow. I managed it .... just. Sat 12th and Sun 13th were beautiful days, quite Alpine to view, but the nights were freezing, with the temperature on the Epsom Downs falling to 6F, -14.4C. 

[HafrenLMP1]

I remember in school we were meant to take a short trip to the swimming baths by bus - the bus went 300 yards down the road, and the driver stopped, and we had to walk back to school; the roads leading to the swimming baths weren't all gritted....and the driver didn't want to risk it.

I also received a new bike for Christmas - but didn't get to ride until mid January......

[Summer8906]

4 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

Friday 11th Dec was bad, bad, bad in Surrey, leading to the cancellation of a farewell party at work as staff made a quick getaway to try and get home before they were stranded by the snow. I managed it .... just. Sat 12th and Sun 13th were beautiful days, quite Alpine to view, but the nights were freezing, with the temperature on the Epsom Downs falling to 6F, -14.4C. 

Possible I guess that the heavy snow I remember was Fri 11th and not Tues 8th, just going off the old newspaper forecasts above.

Can't remember the day of week in all honesty, except it was a weekday.

I guess it's conceivable the Fri 11th event produced "wet snow" where I was a little further south and slightly thawed the first round on the 8th.

Looking at the newspaper reports again it looks like the south coast resorts did particularly badly this month for snow, just like they did in the (less severe) December 1995. Repeated partial incursions of milder air (which were then pushed back again) being to blame; looks like northern France would have had a very frustrating time in Dec 1981 often being in the mild air south of the frontal systems.

Would be very interested to hear any reports of the southwestern part of Surrey, northwestern part of Sussex or inland eastern Hampshire in particular.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 18/12/2023 at 23:03, MarkW said:

21st December 1979 - Friday before Christmas - a lot of snow in London. As I mentioned elsewhere, almost 6 years ago on this forum! No snow in West Mids, me and my dad drove to Crystal Palace for a football match v West Brom. 7.30 KO. It was called off at 6.30 and we got there at 6.50. Blizzards from M1/M6 interchange onwards.

Definitely 1979 and not 1978?

Though having said that, on one day shortly before Christmas in 1979 I do remember a very brief transient wet snow shower in NW Sussex, which was literally the only snow all winter! 1979/80 was one of a small number of virtually snowless winters in this period, 1983/84 was the other, as noted above.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Summer8906

[hillbilly]

On 19/12/2023 at 00:08, damianslaw said:

Sadly too young to remember this spell, but seen photos of deep snow in the ground in the run up to christmas. There was a thaw of sorts post christmas, with the first few days of Jan being milder. A very snowy December, overall not bettered since, 2009 nearly rivalled it but the snow came much later then.

Cold wise on a par with 2010 nearly, but not the same degree of cold.

Not sure about that,certainly different in this area.December 1981 managed to give -23 and -24 deg in England only for January 1982 to beat that at -26.1 deg which is Englands all time record all in Shropshire and here in the Pennines December 1981 was colder than 2010 with monster snowdrifts in both December and January,something 2010 failed to do.