New Year's Eve 1996

[Weather-history]

I remember this New Year's Eve very well as we had snow showers much of the day on this easterly in west Manchester. Woke up to a covering that morning and snow showers continued much of the morning. There was a drier interlude in the early afternoon but then by mid afternoon, we had continous snow on through the evening and into the New Year. Snow showers had aligned in the flow and it was more or less continous snow across southern parts of northern England and into North Wales.

[johnholmes]

yes its one of the snowiest days I can remember here certainly in the past 10 years. several cms of dry powdery snow lasted a couple of days like that.

[Thundery wintry showers]

There wasn't as much snow in Cleadon, but I remember it well.

There were heavy prolonged rain showers on 29 December from a NE'ly, then colder air moved in on the 30th. After a dry sunny morning, showers moved in off the North Sea and fell as snow, increasingly providing a covering. New Year's Eve was a straightforward day of sunshine and snow showers here, about a few centimetres of lying snow. Showers died away as the day progressed. The snow cover persisted for another few days although conditions became less unstable and the sunshine and snow showers was replaced with mostly dry cloudy weather after the turn of the New Year.

[Summer of 95]

Here the first snow started on Dec 30th but it was only light to begin with, there was only a dusting at daybreak on 31st but during the afternoon and evening it snowed enough to give us a good covering (7cm) for New Years Day, which stayed till Jan 8th with the temp barely rising above zero.

The rest of January was cold and mostly dull but with frosts at times, sadly February with non-stop mild westerly dross ruined what had been a good winter.

Winter 2001-2 was pretty much the spit of 1996-7 here; up till the second week of January it had been a decent winter but went tits-up....

[Snowyowl9]

Yes remember this well as I was bringing some friends home from Shrewsbury to stay for NYE and it was very slipperey indeed driving back home as here it didn`t get above freezing all day, as it dropped to -6 the night before and there was heavy snow showers with drifting and 2 inches ,I havn`t driving in snow like that since and it was a 4 wheel drive it was lethal going 10mph was fast enough that day especially on these lanes/slopes.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Snowyowl9

[Weather-history]

Edited January 20, 2012 by Mr_Data

[damianslaw]

Remember this period of weather very well. Dec 96 had been a cold month with lots of foggy frosty weather but limited snowfalls here up until the 30th when some snow showers brought a slight covering. New Years Eve was a snowy day with biting easterly winds and heavy snow showers off and on. We had a couple of inces by the morning of the 1st and the roads were treacherous.

The opening days of Jan 97 stayed very cold with ice days up until he 4th when cloudiers conditions moved in. I think there was a transient snow event on the 9th before the atlantic moved in. The rest of the month was very average with some frost, rain, fog and a bit more snow around the 23rd - agai can't remember the exact dates. Unfortunately Feb brought very mild wet weather ruining what had been a good winter, mind I still rank winter 96/97 as one of the best of the last 20 years for cold and snow, bettered only by winter 95/96, 09/10 and 10/11 thanks to the particularly lengthy 6-7 week cold spell that started in mid late Nov and lasted through untol the 9th Jan - nowhere near as cold as the 2010 event but good all the same.