Christmas snowstorm of 1906......100 years on

[Weather-history]

Perhaps one of the most famous Christmas snow events, Christmas 1906 was a white Christmas for many parts of the UK, although it wasn't until after midnight that the snow arrived in the SE. The run up to Christmas was cold with wintry showers in a NWly flow. A low pressure came down in the flow during Christmas Day and the first snowfalls arrived in Northern Ireland and SW Scotland around lunchtime. This snow spread SEwards during the afternoon reaching the Manchester area by about 8 o'clock. These snowfalls were heavy and intense and although the snowfalls lasted only a couple of hours, depths of snow were ten to thirty centimetres in places. The heaviest snow fell in a band from Manchester to East Anglia. The snow arrived in the SE just after midnight and snow settled in central London itself. People woke up to a very white Boxing Day. The cold spell lasted until the end of the year.

http://www.outlines.org.uk/acatalog/images.../clapxmascd.JPG

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/kelvedonhatc...ages/album2.jpg

LONDON SNOW

by Robert Seymour Bridges

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted brightness;

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marveled--marveled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,

"O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!"

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of somber men, past tale of number

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Mr_Data

[charlton north-downs]

Hi Mr Data

Many thanks again

The poem sums up perfectly how I feel about snow and I think a lot of people dont mind fresh snowfall and the problems it can cause(Breaks up the routine)

At least the weather has amore wintry fell about it at the moment(It was -2.5c this morning in Biggin Hill)

[Weather-history]

100 years ago today.

Edited December 25, 2006 by Mr_Data

[Weather-history]

From the 27th December 1906 edition of the Times

Edited December 19, 2007 by Mr_Data

[Weather-history]

Love these parts

"Many hundreds of persons enjoyed a splendid day's sport in toboganning and sledging......Snowballing parties too had a merry time......... Motor-cars proved a tempting target for some of the snowballers..."

Fantastic reporting.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Classic indeed! Aye; no doubt they wouldn't be allowed to report that kind of thing nowadays!

[Weather-history]

Here are a couple of maps produced in 1907 on the timing and depths of snow that fell during Christmas Day and early Boxing Day 1906.

An article written in 1907 on the festive snow event.

[johnholmes]

thanks Kevin, lovely reading the old accounts