14 Years Ago Today

[damianslaw]

14 years ago to the day i.e. 6th Feb 1996 saw the last major significant snowfall over Cumbria. When I say significant I mean 1 and half foot plus.

It was a classic battleground situation with a stalling occluded front from the atlantic bumping into cold continental air. Much of SW Scotland, NW England and Wales saw over a foot of snow, with localised falls in parts of Cumbria and SW Scotland seeing 2 feet.

These are rare events in the UK, i.e. frontal snow giving widespread depths approaching 2 feet.

We have come close to seeing a repeat of this event this winter, but the fronts have fizzled out, however, I feel later this month there could be a good chnace of a repeat, the synoptics this winter have been very conducive to such an event especially in the last few weeks with undercutting and stalling fronts from the SW crashing into cold continental air.

The 6thFeb 1996 will be etched in my memory for a very long time.

[cheeky_monkey]

sorry do not remember it???

[AderynCoch]

sorry do not remember it???

Where did you live at the time? Northwestern parts bore the brunt of it.

I remember it well. We got absolutely buried - at least a foot of level snow with massive drifts. That was the one and only snow day I ever had during my school years. I haven't seen anything like it since.

[cheeky_monkey]

Where did you live at the time? Northwestern parts bore the brunt of it.

I remember it well. We got absolutely buried - at least a foot of level snow with massive drifts. That was the one and only snow day I ever had during my school years. I haven't seen anything like it since.

i was living in Exeter in Feb 1996..what i do remember about that month was the fact the south west was forecast to have 2 major snowfalls the night before each but ended up with rain and sleet both times