January, 1981 — a Month of Many Near-Misses

[LetItSnow]

i felt compelled to start a thread on this frustrating month after looking through the synoptic pressure charts for this month. perhaps this is also a lesson in why any azores/euro heights can wreak havoc in this forum!

i felt compelled to check the charts for this month after reading about severe cold across europe. indeed, there was a severe blizzard across greece from the 7th that caused the loss of life. this is my first own historic thread, so apologies if not very good!

overall, Jan. 1981 on the surface looks quite an uninteresting month. it has an average temperature of 4.9°C & an average precipitation figure of 57.8mm; overall, rather mild & quite dry... but through close analysis, i realise this could potentially have been a good month for cold & snow. let me take you through it!

 

new year’s day; a bland start to the month, with a large azores high but already some deep cold entrenched into scandinavia. 

by the 4th, the cold trough to our east manages to turn the winds into the north. we do have some greenland heights, but overall it’s looking rather flimsy, and at this point, not much more than wintry showers  

indeed, the large azores-atalantic ridge collapses over the country & turns it milder, with the cold air stuck to our east.  fail #1!

another sneaky attempt to ridge up to greenland on the 9th. another area of low pressure forces very cold air into scandinavia, but the misplaced azores high is once again too strong & flattens over the country, albeit under cold air with frost.

 

the 12th sees another area of low pressure dive-bomb into scandinavia, with another cold shot. high pressure woefully tries to ridge up to greenland, but is shunted south, and the high sinks yet again, though at least bringing some frost as it does so  

another reload! i find the first half of Jan. 1981 interesting for the sheer amount of cold plunges into scandinavia. by the 15th, another deep cold pool is shunted down, this time we’re ever so close to being in the firing line, yet apart from across the far north it ends up a halfhearted northerly, if not slight northwesterly.

then, the high pressure becomes a dominant feature in the second-half of the month, with the azores high stronger than ever  

by months end, we get some very interesting charts start to appear. this chart reminds me of the warm spell of Feb. 2019. does anyone remember if there were unusually mild temperatures at the end of Jan. 1981? i suspect frost & fog would have meant this would be quite cold still. couldn’t even do mild right! would have been a very hot spell if it occurred in high summer  

we end Jan. 1981 on a very summary looking chart, but probably cool with frosty nights and perhaps fog, more likely in the south.

 

Feb. 1981 would turn out to be a colder month, with a C.E.T. of 3.0

 

i can imagine a meltdown or two in the model forum if that pattered occurred this winter!

 

what’s your memories of Jan. 1981? share them below! thank you for  reading.

 

[Penrith Snow]

I lived in South Birmingham at the time and remember this month although I hadnt looked closely at the synoptics so weren't aware of the repeated northerly plunges to our east.

I do remember the repeated chopping and chaning of the weather in the first half with sunny cold days being followed by mild cloudy ones, however, the transition often brought warm front snowfalls and I recorded 4 days with lying snow from these events.

The mild spell at the end was nothing remarkable, it wouldn't even get a mention these days with maximum temperatures of 12c to 13c.

The mild weather continued into early February but by mid Month a cold easterly was established, nothing severe, similar to Feb 2005 but on the 21st a depression became slow moving in the Irish Sea and the West Midlands was hit by a severe blizzard, 30cms of snow fell in Birmingham an amazing event given the modest synoptics. It occured on a Saturday night and I remember going to the cinema to see The Shining, as we entered the cinema the evening was dry but we emerged into a winter wonderland and a City grinding to a halt.

I lived on the higher outskirts of the City and the bus home couldn't make it all the way so I had to walk the final mile, having just watched The Shining walking through dark, quiet streets knee deep with drifting snow I half expected Jack Nicholson to jump out of a bush with an axe! anyone who has seen the film will remember the Maze scene at the end.  

Andy

[A Face like Thunder]

Penrith Snow - Philip Eden refers to 'heavy drifting snow affecting Wales and the West Midlands on 22nd and 23 Feb, with 35cm accumulated at Hednesford, Staffs' (Great Weather Disasters). As 22nd was a Sunday, it must indeed have been the 21st when you had your problems getting home from the cinema.

I recall little about the early part of 1981, and certainly considerably less than I do about the January which followed in 1982 and which was a complete nightmare for many commuters (snow, ice, strikes....) like myself.

[hillbilly]

We always get snow here in the Pennines but 1981 was nothing to get excited about.My memories of that winter was of little snow but made up for it in the last week of April which blessed us with a blizzard dumping snow here to rival any of the biggest snow winters.It is a freak in weather history i have yet to hear of anything to rival it!

[Alexis]

The big Manchester fall of January 2010 was described as "the biggest fall since 1981". Was this the 21 Feb event that hit Birmingham?

[AderynCoch]

1 hour ago, Alexis said:

The big Manchester fall of January 2010 was described as "the biggest fall since 1981". Was this the 21 Feb event that hit Birmingham?

That source was probably referring to December 1981.

[Summer8906]

On 27/11/2020 at 06:43, LetItSnow said:

by months end, we get some very interesting charts start to appear. this chart reminds me of the warm spell of Feb. 2019. does anyone remember if there were unusually mild temperatures at the end of Jan. 1981? i suspect frost & fog would have meant this would be quite cold still. couldn’t even do mild right! would have been a very hot spell if it occurred in high summer  

Sorry, I realise this is quite some time ago but yes, I remember the end of Jan 1981 very well. I remember it being unusually sunny (NW Sussex). In particular I remember Thurs 29th being very sunny and I stayed with a friend (on a hill) on the night of 29th/30th. The 30th dawned sunny on the hill at around 200m but on descending into the village at around 100m early in the morning, it was thick fog. The fog persisted all day down there. Must have been interesting on the hills that day looking down into a sea of fog. Happens surprisingly infrequently but another occurrence in the same area was 23 Dec 1994.

I don't remember the temperature specifically, so it was probably about average.

The weekend of 31 Jan / 1 Feb was also very sunny and I remember sunny weather persisting through much of Feb, accompanied by frosts.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow]

 Summer8906 Thank God I managed to make threads easier to read since 2020... Heathrow daily records show the end of January 1981 into February had some very mild days but very cold minima. February 1st, 1981 had a high of 12.5C with a low of -2.4C. The 2nd had a 10.9C high with a -3.7C low. A few days before though the minima were closer to 5-7C with maxima around 7-8C. That implies the high maybe started "dirty" but became cleaner, which is strange as the progression here I would have thought would be the opposite.

February 1981 seemed to be consistently cold by night. Most nights appear to have been below freezing. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

31 January/1 February 1981 were quite unusual over much of southern England considering the time of year - mild and sunny by day but cold and frosty by night. Normally we don't see that pattern until mid to late February - the maxima tend to be suppressed in those setups between mid-November and mid-February.

I don't think of January 1981 as quite a month of near misses - I'd associate that description more with a month where northerly blasts keep going out into the North Sea, or where easterly blasts keep failing to make it across the North Sea. Britain did catch the western flank of several of those northerly blasts and as others have mentioned, while they were invariably short lived, there were repeated frontal snowfalls for much of the country when milder air pushed in from the west, and the northerlies also brought some snow showers to the north and east. The north-westerly on the 15th also brought snow showers into some western areas with lying snow at Lancaster. The following frontal system on the 16th brought substantial snow to the Glasgow area. As a result, for many the frequency of sleet/snow falling was much higher than we would normally see in a month that was mild overall.

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by Thundery wintry showers

[LetItSnow]

 Thundery wintry showers Back in 2020 I remember my initial thoughts were how it was close to being a severely cold month, hence my description. 

[cheeky_monkey]

all i remember about Jan & Feb 1981 was that it seemed at the time to alternate between rather mild and rather cold..2 weeks would be coldish followed by 2 weeks of mildish weather rinse and repeat don't remember much snow or rain

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow Indeed, 1 Feb 1981 looks very "Atlantic" but I suppose once you're into Feb, anticyclonic westerlies do tend to become sunnier. However with that much west in the wind, the minimum was surprisingly low.

As for Feb 1981 I do remember that month our class at primary school kept temperature recordings with a thermometer and a description of the weather. I remember "sunny" and "Brrr!!!!" coming up rather a lot, and the temp 4/40 (C/F; as this was the early 80s, Fahrenheit was still extensively in use) occurring frequently. I think we did the observations in the morning though, so that wouldn't have been a maximum temp.

 

Edited January 4 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow My memories are a bit vague but I recall it being mildish (not silly mild) and often sunny. Mostly dry with little rain. It does look like there were a few northerly blasts, but I don't remember them clearly. It looks anticyclonic and somewhat northwesterly with the result that there was an alternation between mild "returning tropical maritime" from the WNW and colder polar/arctic blasts. More recently Jan 2015 was a bit like this around mid-month.

My initial prediction for the current month was that it would be a Jan 1981 repeat, as Dec 2024 reminded me very much of Dec 1980.