January 2013 Cold Spell - How's it been for you ?

[Polar Maritime]

A good cold spell in this part of the world. 9 consecutive 'ice days' from the 16th-24th was the longest spell since 11 days from Jan' 23rd-Feb 2nd 1996 ; even December 2010 only managed a spell of 8.

48.5 cm of snowfall in total makes it the snowiest January since 1986 and 38cm of undrifted snow shortly after midnight last night was the greatest depth in January since 1987; the fall of 20cm yesterday was also the largest single fall in January since 1987.

What a shame the weather couldn't have stayed cold so that tonight's rainfall could have added another 12cm or so of snow.

Thanks TM very interesting data, I thought it was something special last night.

[Terminal Moraine]

Thanks TM very interesting data, I thought it was something special last night.

The only way it could have been better, P.M, is if the temperature had been -4c and the wind averaging 40 mph; and or course if it had carried on for another 12 hours or so. That really would have been something.

[Polar Maritime]

The only way it could have been better, P.M, is if the temperature had been -4c and the wind averaging 40 mph; and or course if it had carried on for another 12 hours or so. That really would have been something.

I can not disagree with that at all TM ! I dread to think what would happen if we followed with a thaw like we are experiencing now though..

[Nigerian Prince]

Going back 35 years using my memory, I rate this cold spell for snow events inLondon and days of lying snow, for a week now, at some places. We must not forget the period mid Jan to the end, is not well know for very cold spells to develop due to the strength of the jet stream, The best January cold spell for me was Jan 1985, from the 4th to about the 19th of Jan, not a lot of snow but a very cold spell of weather, that reached its peak in the SE, on Jan 14, with temps not getting above -4, average wind speed on this bitter day 15mph. Then it was Jan 1979, a very cold spell of weather in the 1st week and a half with snow and sub zero temps,but it got milder later, followed by Jan 1987, on the 12 of Jan the temperature did not get above -6 at St, James Park central London, or Heathrow Airport, with heavy snow for 3 days, just over a week later this cold spell was coming to an end,Jan 2010 was also impressive because the first few days, produced snow events, coming after a snowy and cold 2 weeks in December, but by mid Jan this cold spell was over, as for January 2013, 2 week cold spell, for snow it was not bad, maximum temperatures also not bad, the temperature did not get above 0 at most locations in central London on the 19th with modrate snowfall, what was lacking was Sunshine, and very cold nightime temperatures, but that as been a feature of recent winters, for a 2 week snowy cold spell from 12-25/26 its quite historic, normally we dont get cold spells this long, at this time of year. So I would say, 7/10 for 2013 Jan, 9/10 for January1985, 8.5/10 for JAN 1979, and 7.5/10 for Jan 1987. 10/10 for January 1963, but I was not born.

[J10]

I'd rate it 8 out of 10.

Days of Snow Falling 11

Snow Cover 11 ( of which 9 met Met Office Snow Day Rules)

15th Jan and 18-25th inclusive.

A major snow event on the 18th giving around 4 inches, with drifts of 8 inches in places.

Very little thaw until the Monday 21st, when wintry showers and slightly milder temps thinned, Further heavy snow on the evening of the 22nd into the 23rd, giving around 4 inches. Further heavy snow during the day of the 23rd, so about 4-6 inches in total.

A bit of a thaw in the sun on the Thursday, but heavy rain overnight Friday / Saturday finally washed it away.

Effectively 3 snow events led to one of the best snow periods. As others have said though, if there was a freeze before the snow events, or if skies were clearer then total snow depths in the shade would have possibly been close to a foot.

[tugster31]

Has obviously been cold but very poor snow amounts as usual, got to go back to I think 1986 since we got a proper dumping

[Terminal Moraine]

Has obviously been cold but very poor snow amounts as usual, got to go back to I think 1986 since we got a proper dumping

What about February 1991; did you not get plenty then?

[tugster31]

What about February 1991; did you not get plenty then?

No don't recall anything significant I was 20 then and nothing stopped me getting to work whereas the 86 one the roads were blocked. Unless another local can stand me corrected. This part of the world has an amazing ability to miss all the heavy snow don't know if its because of our height below sea level and our proximity to the wash. But we don't seem to miss out on heavy rain :-(

[philglossop]

To be honest - it was poor here. Yes some parts in the North of city got some snow- and the thunderstorm hail event caused chaos and took a life on the A38 last Tuesday. But the cold never really got going here, we had a couple of cold nights, but not the epic cold of 1986/1987.

Still firmly in the no snow club.

[hillbilly]

i guess if you like snow its been a reasonable 2 week period been better the further east or higher up you are but i dont think many have suffered much disruption and there has been little wind .for 2 weeks lying snow..respect...for monster drifts and disruption3/10.for me snow is 1979 cold..1986 almost 6 weeks subzero jan23 to march4....respect

[ScottSnow]

Interesting the variations of the cold/snow even sometimes at relatively short distances. Just shows what a difference height and distance from the sea can make.

I'd still rate the cold spell at 7.5/10 here, we did quite well from friday night's event but I will stick by my original rating. We've had two weeks of snowcover and falling snow virtually everyday the only thing missing was low overnight temps. The constant cloudcover did get a bit depressing and the marginal situations where we ended up with rain or sleet were disappointing but overall the conditions were not to be sniffed at here. It was certainly very close to being an epic spell of cold weather if the temps had been slightly lower.

The cold spell would be in my top three from the last ten years;

1) Nov/Dec 2010 10/10

2) Dec/Jan 2010 8.5/10

3) Jan 2013 7.5 /10

4) Feb/Mar 2005 6/10

5) Feb/Mar 2006 ( Was living in Scotland at time) 6/10

February's 2009 and 2012 were poor for my location here in the north east.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Snow White

[Summer Sun]

It seemed a fairly average affair tbh the snow was poor only one good fall and that was on the 25th

Other than that it was just a spell of cloudy dull muck for 10 days the past 2 days have at least saw some sunshine

[polarlow2]

Pretty good for west London I would say; two noteworthy snow events, each delivering about 6cms. The second one, last Sunday, became more intense as the day went on, which was a surprise. No deep cold, which maybe is not surprising for the capital, but it is rare for London to get snow on snow events so I'd give it a solid 8 out of 10. Not a patch on Feb 2009, or even Jan 03, but not too shabby.

[ScottSnow]

It seemed a fairly average affair tbh the snow was poor only one good fall and that was on the 25th

Other than that it was just a spell of cloudy dull muck for 10 days the past 2 days have at least saw some sunshine

Yes the sunny weather yesterday was a nice change. Imagine a spell of weather like Feb 1947 where I believe sunshine totals were very low for the entire month in easterly areas.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Snow White

[Cloud 10]

For my location it has been a fantastic cold spell for snow with over 15 inches depth at one point and

every bit as disruptive as January 2010 or November/December 2010 which also produced more than

a foot of lying snow.

I would give it 9/10 and would have given it 10 if it had been colder with more convective activity.

[Evening thunder]

For me I saw Fridays event that gave at least 10cm but then had to leave for a Geography field trip to South Spain at 3am on the 19th (note the almost 40 mile coach trip and flight from Gatwick were both pretty much on time), so in effect it was the equivalent to a snow event with an Atlantic breakdown all gone 24 hours later. However Friday the 18th's event was good with quite dry powdery snow, fine flakes at first then bigger flakes and temps around -2C.

Not quite sure how much more this area got once I was gone but know there was a bit more on Sunday. Probably quite a good spell for this area, bar one important aspect which is sunshine. (rating is probably around a 7/10 but not here to know for sure)

At my home in East Devon Friday the 18th's event was rain/sleet/wet snow on low ground but snow on the hills, there was apparently 1-2cm at my house briefly one day during the week after.

However in terms of cold minimas in East Devon it was poor, although there was an ice day, the lowest min of -2.4C this month is actually the mildest absolute min of any winter month since I began recording in 2007!

Edited January 27, 2013 by Stormmad26

[damianslaw]

Thanks to the snowfall of the 25th, preety much most of England and Wales ended up with at least seeing a couple of inches of snow at some point, many places much more.. Only Cornwall escaped the snow. For some parts notably South Wales, West Country is has been a very snowy spell indeed. NE England also saw decent amounts of heavy snow extending into Yorkshire. Cheshire and parts of NW England notably Wigan area managed alot of snow.

Here in Cumbria we managed 8 inches on the 25th, preety good going.

Still waiting for a nationwide blizzard,....

[hillbilly]

it seems some of our members must be quite young,comparing this winter to the last 10 years sure its in the top 3!! i am in my 40s and i remember 78,79,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,90,93,95 all beat this spell for snow disruption and most of them for cold

[ScottSnow]

it seems some of our members must be quite young,comparing this winter to the last 10 years sure its in the top 3!! i am in my 40s and i remember 78,79,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,90,93,95 all beat this spell for snow disruption and most of them for cold

Well if you were born in the 80's or 90's your not going to be able to compare it to winters that you can't remember or that were before you were even born. People who witnessed 1947 and 1963 might well think that the years you have mentioned were damp squibs in comparison.

I said the last ten years as I joined the forum ten years ago in 2003.

[Harve]

Did any other city not see any lying snow whatsoever? Glasgow didn't. Perhaps Plymouth, Exeter and some on the south coast didn't either, and maybe even Inverness?

December's cold spell was slightly shorter but it also felt colder (there may have been a few ice days but there were definitely 0 this month) and had a few days of lying snow. I don't think there was too much difference between the two here, anyway.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Harve

[hillbilly]

Well if you were born in the 80's or 90's your not going to be able to compare it to winters that you can't remember or that were before you were even born. People who witnessed 1947 and 1963 might well think that the years you have mentioned were damp squibs in comparison.

I said the last ten years as I joined the forum ten years ago in 2003.

am sorry i wasnt taking a dig at you personally,i guess there are a lot of younger members out there that must be loving these last few years.i suppose the long spell between 1995 and 2008 were pretty uneventful and where i thought the 70's/80's were normal younger people would think 95/08 were.i asked an old guy recently wether 47 or 63 was worse and he said 1940 was every bit as bad.have looked on met office historic station data and round here 63 is third 40 second and 47 worst for temps,amazing how areas vary!!!!!!!!!!!

[Downpour]

It's all well and good saying the charts show promise but we've been hearing those words most of the winter. The last cold spell wasn't nothing spectacular in terms of deep cold, for many places it was simply too marginal for snow either falling or lying for any period of time. The outlook at best suggests transitional cool/cold snaps for the foreseeable, this may change in the coming days but until then I prefer to comment on what the models are showing, rather than hoping.

Eh? Loads of areas (including London) had lots of falling and lying snow. It was one of the best cold spells for many years.

[lindy2017]

It's all well and good saying the charts show promise but we've been hearing those words most of the winter. The last cold spell wasn't nothing spectacular in terms of deep cold, for many places it was simply too marginal for snow either falling or lying for any period of time. The outlook at best suggests transitional cool/cold snaps for the foreseeable, this may change in the coming days but until then I prefer to comment on what the models are showing, rather than hoping.

We had lots of snow over a foot deep we still have some in garden and on pavements ......it was -11 .....but we live in another world ..........

[Paul White.]

It's all well and good saying the charts show promise but we've been hearing those words most of the winter. The last cold spell wasn't nothing spectacular in terms of deep cold, for many places it was simply too marginal for snow either falling or lying for any period of time. The outlook at best suggests transitional cool/cold snaps for the foreseeable, this may change in the coming days but until then I prefer to comment on what the models are showing, rather than hoping.

With respect I have to disagree wrt how the last cold spell did not deliver. It did deliver the small wedge of high pressure over scandi brought in some nice cold uppers diagonally from Wales south west to north east Scotland here in West Yorkshire combined snowfall over the two week period gave us 14 inches of snow. If you watched the news you may have seen people having to stay in there cars over night on the M6 and M62 because over a foot of snow fell in three hours last Friday.. The models for late in the period do look as though they have the potential to deliver something close to what we have just had. I have to add this and I hope my post does not get removed because it needs to be said. Reading this thread over the last couple if months feels like its not a cold spell unless the south if south east gets the cold. Please remember people that there are millions of people living north of Watford. We count as well.

Best regards Paul

[Snow free zone]

Interesting reading all the posts of how the cold spell delivered. IMBY it was just a bog standard 2 weeks of below average temps. I posted in our regional thread the other night, Preston has yet again managed to stay relativley snow free, even though all areas to the North, East, South and even West have received a decent covering - that has lasted more than a couple of days. Someone posted a sat image of the snow covering the UK from Friday's front, there were 2 gaps in the NW one was right over us, the other over the Manchester area. For those of you talking about snow on the M6, that was 10 miles south of me - we received wet snow that struggled to settle whilst as little as 10 miles away there was chaos - work that one out ......

For snow and frost it has been no more than average here, taking into account my location and how we normally always seem to struggle to get any kind of snow here. Reading some posts in the MO thread where i've read you are in the NW it always snows up there, well not in this part of the NW it doesn't, i'd even say we are on a par with the SW for a lack of snow IMBY of course.