Late Spring Snowfalls

[damianslaw]

Noted on BBC Ceefax weather pages that May 1968 saw some localised snowfalls on this date, I know about June 2nd 1975 but are there any other episodes in recent decades say since the 50's when late spring snowfalls have occured after the 19th May - I expect it would take a cold northerly to do this...

This spring has been notable in its absence of any northerlies, not even half damp squib northerlies have occured - very dissapointed at the lack of cold arctic air as if it had occured like last easter I think it would have brought fairly widespread snowfall, perhaps we used up our out of winter season cold arctic air outbreaks during 2008 with the late october affair as well , in fact 2009 has been devoid of any real arctic northerly outbreak so far .. we'll probably get one in July and August!

[Terminal Moraine]

Not quite after the 19th but May 1955 had a notable northerly outbreak in mid-month which resulted in widespread snowfall between the 14th and 21st. Malham Tarn in Yorkshire had 10cm of lying snow on the morning of the 17th and Birmingham had its worst May snowfall in 60 years.

There was widespread lying snow at 0900 g.m.t on high ground from about Debyshire northward and even as far south as Whipsnade.

[Thundery wintry showers]

In recent times the ones I can locate are:

• f13-15 May 1993- heavy snowstorm across much of Scotland and upland parts of northern England. In the Tyneside area there was a prolonged downpour of rain (I sometimes refer to it as the mid-May monsoon of 1993), with steady temps of 5-7C. Around Glasgow and Edinburgh snow was even observed to fall close to sea level.
  
• 11-17 May 1995- wintry showers fell in Scotland and north-east England on the 11th, and more widely on the 12th when wintry showers were also reported from Manchester. Some parts of Scotland had a fair covering of snow from it. After that, a frontal system on the 17th saw rain turn to snow around Shrewsbury and some inland parts of north-east England.
  
• 6-7 May 1997- this was quite early in the month but produced the most widespread falling snow in May in the 1990s- snow showers occurred widely even in southern England, and many parts of north-west England awoke to a snow cover early on the 7th.
  

I note that in Weather Log many sites reported one day of falling sleet/snow in the otherwise warm dry sunny May of 1989. Could anyone shed any light on this? There were some very cold showery northerly winds at the end of the month.

[Terminal Moraine]

I recorded sleet showers during the early morning of the 12th in May 1989. A deep depression had crossed the country and, after a chilly and mainly cloudy night with a min' of 1.1c, a showery trough moved east during the morning.

The temperature at 0400 g.m.t was 1.5c and reached a max' of 9.3c that afternoon.