Winter Snow Events

[Stevew]

Very interesting, I do remember the long run of almost snowless winters in the 70's. Everyone seems to have forgotten those miserable winters from 71/72 to 75/76.

I don't like to quibble, but I think you may have overated the snow event of 14th & 15th February 1973. I feel this missed most of the country. Significant in Cornwall, Northern Ireland & the west of Scotland, but nothing more.

Category 3 more appropriate?

[Terminal Moraine]

A very interesting piece of work there TWS. When I have time I'll compare the dates with my own records but I can see very little, if anything,, to argue about. Without doubt worthy of publication in Journal of Meteorology.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Very interesting, I do remember the long run of almost snowless winters in the 70's. Everyone seems to have forgotten those miserable winters from 71/72 to 75/76.

I don't like to quibble, but I think you may have overated the snow event of 14th & 15th February 1973. I feel this missed most of the country. Significant in Cornwall, Northern Ireland & the west of Scotland, but nothing more.

Category 3 more appropriate?

It's entirely possible that I may have overrated 14/15 February 1973- particularly for the earlier years I had to do a fair amount of guesswork based on my sources' descriptions of those events and selective accounts of UK snow cover, and some events may have come across as being more (or less) significant than they really were.

I refer back to the point that I hope that any such subjectivity should largely cancel out over the course of a given winter.

Can anyone else recall 14/15 February 1973 and whether or not it was somewhat geographically restricted? I've certainly seen a few references to northern England getting heavily hit by it, but it is usual in such "westerly" cold snaps for south-eastern areas to largely miss out, just like the north-west often misses out when an east wind blows (e.g. Lancaster got just a dusting from the January 1987 event, but I figured that it was very much the exception rather than the rule).

A very interesting piece of work there TWS. When I have time I'll compare the dates with my own records but I can see very little, if anything,, to argue about. Without doubt worthy of publication in Journal of Meteorology.

Thanks for that- a very high-order compliment indeed!

[johnholmes]

I'll add my congrats Ian-hell of a lot of work and don't be upset at some picking fault-you have made it clear what your criterias are.

[Phil UK]

For Solihull. My memories go back to...

1978/79

1981/82 (Moved house at the time, 29th December 1981 and it was deep snow over ice and more deep snow over that. It was a case of eat your heart out, Torvill and Dean. )

January and February 1987 (The latter month being more prominent. A foot at least of the white stuff and could read read a newspaper at night as the sky was so yellow/orange).

December 1991. (Heavy rain turned into a blizzard that deposited a foot or more of snow by that Saturday evening. Memorable and I don't think will ever be repeated. The synpotic situation was a cold front coming down from the North, was heavy rain initially but with a cold Arctic blast undercutting it turned it all into snow after midnight. By 09:00am that Saturday morning, at least 10 inches had already fallen in a blizzard that I can only describe as being like a dense fog. The front got stuck over the Midlands, Wales and East Anglia).

February 1993 also springs to mind.

Since then, nothing, even earlier this year, nothing less than 6 inches has fallen even though if spread out (See my sig!) over 10 days would accumulate to that.

Phil.

[Thundery wintry showers]

December 1991. (Heavy rain turned into a blizzard that deposited a foot or more of snow by that Saturday evening. Memorable and I don't think will ever be repeated. The synpotic situation was a cold front coming down from the North, was heavy rain initially but with a cold Arctic blast undercutting it turned it all into snow after midnight. By 09:00am that Saturday morning, at least 10 inches had already fallen in a blizzard that I can only describe as being like a dense fog. The front got stuck over the Midlands, Wales and East Anglia).

The other events sound about right, but the event in the above quote was almost certainly the 8th December 1990.

[Phil UK]

You're probably right, Ian. Don't grow old. Has this debilitating memory effect on you. I do recall it being the first or second week of December however. Right month, wrong year. Ah well.

Phil.

[Evening thunder]

I'll also add to what others have said here, that's a lot of very good work/research done and a very interesting and valuable piece of work created!

[Summer of 95]

Excellent piece of work TWS, I think it makes as good a summary/comparison between winters as possible, allowing for the fact that people will always be liable to disagree as they are with anything of this sort.

Brilliant and IMO quite right to see 1991/2 get the wooden spoon- not only does it prove that my memory isn't playing tricks recalling it as snowless, but it also gives credit where credit's due to the snow events in other maligned winters like 88/9 (eg the Cat 3 in November 88).

The only one that surprised me was 2007/8 getting a higher score than 2006/7- granted the latter had next to nothing till late January, but 07/8 was far worse IMO; in much of the southern half of the UK there was next to no snow till the second half of March, and in some places (no names mentioned) even that which fell in the March/April events didn't lie. 2006/7 by contrast produced the second-deepest snowcover here since 1996/7!

The "affecting most of the country" criterion is important: since 1991 I believe there have would have been only 3 certain dates on which 80% of locations in England had an official "day of snow lying"- 15 Feb 1994, 28 Dec 2000 and 3 Feb 2009. Possibly some dates in the periods 24-30 Jan 1996 and 30 Dec 1996-5 Jan 1997 as well.

Edited August 15, 2009 by Summer of 95

[Thundery wintry showers]

The only one that surprised me was 2007/8 getting a higher score than 2006/7- granted the latter had next to nothing till late January, but 07/8 was far worse IMO; in much of the southern half of the UK there was next to no snow till the second half of March, and in some places (no names mentioned) even that which fell in the March/April events didn't lie. 2006/7 by contrast produced the second-deepest snowcover here since 1996/7!

Yep, the comparison between those two winters was certainly interesting. 2006/07 of course had those two snow events that affected large parts of central and southern England that have recently had something of a "snow drought", and there were no such widespread events in those areas in 2007/08. However, taking the UK as a whole 2007/08 was clearly the snowier of the two seasons, thanks largely to the frequent northerlies of early to mid spring. It is easy to forget, for example, that traditionally snowy locations like Aberdeen, Durham and Norwich had no more than a couple of dustings during the entire 2006/07 season (making it easily on a par with 1991/92 in those areas), and a feat which none of those locations came close to repeating during 2007/08.

The "affecting most of the country" criterion is important: since 1991 I believe there have would have been only 3 certain dates on which 80% of locations in England had an official "day of snow lying"- 15 Feb 1994, 28 Dec 2000 and 3 Feb 2009. Possibly some dates in the periods 24-30 Jan 1996 and 30 Dec 1996-5 Jan 1997 as well.

I think you're right, both with regards the dates and the overall assertion. Comparing the Weather Logs from the 1980s with those of the 1990s and 2000s starkly highlights the remarkable lack of snow events since Feb '91 in which more than half of England ended up snow-covered.

[mackerel sky]

Enjoyed looking through that Ian. Have you got there yet with the doctorate? I'm done and dusted.

I know 2008/2009 wasn't that exceptional, but here is a picture of my foot in the back garden from February, in 13 inches of snow.

[Summer of 95]

Yep, the comparison between those two winters was certainly interesting. 2006/07 of course had those two snow events that affected large parts of central and southern England that have recently had something of a "snow drought", and there were no such widespread events in those areas in 2007/08. However, taking the UK as a whole 2007/08 was clearly the snowier of the two seasons, thanks largely to the frequent northerlies of early to mid spring. It is easy to forget, for example, that traditionally snowy locations like Aberdeen, Durham and Norwich had no more than a couple of dustings during the entire 2006/07 season (making it easily on a par with 1991/92 in those areas), and a feat which none of those locations came close to repeating during 2007/08.

I think you're right, both with regards the dates and the overall assertion. Comparing the Weather Logs from the 1980s with those of the 1990s and 2000s starkly highlights the remarkable lack of snow events since Feb '91 in which more than half of England ended up snow-covered.

Hampstead vs Shrewsbury 1993/4 to 2008/9 (former from weather-uk);

Days Snow Lying/Max Depth cm

1993/94: H 8/5 S 7/10

1994/95: H 1/1 S 6/7

1995/96: H 14/3 S 21/15

1996/97: H 4/2 S 12/7

1997/98: H 2/6 S 2/2

1998/99: H 0/0 S 1/1

1999/00: H 3/2 S 0/0

2000/01: H 9/3 S 7/5

2001/02: H 0/0 S 7/2

2002/03: H 8/10 S 1/5

2003/04: H 4/5 S 5/4

2004/05: H 9/4 S 5/3

2005/06: H 6/2 S 6/12

2006/07: H 3/8 S 3/7

2007/08: H 2/6 S 0/0

2008/09: H 10/16 S 8/5

So only once in the last 10 years (2001/02) has Shrewsbury won on both counts. With the exception of 2005/06 Hampstead has tended to win on greatest depth in recent years- whereas Shrewsbury trounced it in the mid-90s.

[Thundery wintry showers]

That set of data illustrates a point I made in the analysis- it seems that the north and west has generally seen less snow in the 2000s than in the 1990s, but the south-east has generally seen rather more snow. I think the main reason for this is that easterly types have been more frequent, whereas northerlies have been less potent and more often having showers exclusively confined to windward coasts. This latter point is strongly reflected by the sharper decline in snow cover since the 1990s in inland parts of north-east England as opposed to the eastern coastal strip.

The winters of 1998/99 and 2006/07 both achieved the unusual feat of having coastal parts of Tyne & Wear see more snow than inland parts.

[Summer of 95]

That set of data illustrates a point I made in the analysis- it seems that the north and west has generally seen less snow in the 2000s than in the 1990s, but the south-east has generally seen rather more snow. I think the main reason for this is that easterly types have been more frequent, whereas northerlies have been less potent and more often having showers exclusively confined to windward coasts. This latter point is strongly reflected by the sharper decline in snow cover since the 1990s in inland parts of north-east England as opposed to the eastern coastal strip.

The winters of 1998/99 and 2006/07 both achieved the unusual feat of having coastal parts of Tyne & Wear see more snow than inland parts.

Easterlies and NE-lies these days seldom seem to give much snow more than 20-40 miles from the E coast, which I think is another factor favouring Hampstead in the 2000s. The easterlies of Febs 1991 and 1994 gave similar amounts to both locations, Shrewsbury even did better in those of Jan 1996 and Dec/Jan 96/7; but those of Jan 2003 gave nothing here, and those of Feb and Dec 2005 only brief dustings while parts of the SE did well. Feb 2009's 6 days of snow lying in Shrewsbury hides the true story somewhat; the dates and amounts were 2nd/1cm (melted by 2pm before the snow returned at 5), 3rd/5cm, 4th/2cm (only about 70% cover at 9am, less than 50% by 5pm), 5th/3cm, 6th and 7th 1cm all overnight showers which apart from the 5th didn't last all day. The longest duration of >50% cover was only about 45 hours, while in 2001/2 a mere 2cm stayed for 6 days.

With the exception of Christmas 2004 NW'lies since 1997 here have tended to give either rain or the dreaded non-sticking stuff.