Memories of 1979

[cheeky_monkey]

 IslaArklayblend can confirm we did not have double glazing in 1979..it was an early to mid 1980s craze in the world of windows 

[The PIT]

The winter of discontent. Sheffield due to gritters strike only had one road open into it at one stage. Some pictures below. I'll try and hunt up some photos the family took later.

Just a moment...

WWW.THESTAR.CO.UK

Not a day for new years celebrations

Edited November 13, 2024 by The PIT

[Summer8906]

On 09/07/2024 at 23:17, LetItSnow said:

Remarkably consistent month for temperature with most days between 21C and 25C but only a max of 30C and the lowest max was a modest 18C. Seems like a very comfortable month. Apparently sunshine was very average across much of England but it was very dull and wet in Scotland, particularly in the west.

I vaguely remember July 1979. It was the last month that I lived in the northwest of England, moving to the south in early August.

I seem to remember it being rather dry and cool but also fairly cloudy, but generally bright rather than dull with spells of sunshine most days. I'd guess most days were around 18-20C. I can't really remember any warmth bar a single hot day, which I cannot remember the date of. In fact I seem to remember the whole of June and July 1979 being like that: dry, cool, rather cloudy, but not overly dull, and the archives do suggest that this was mostly the case.

It looks like it was a very westerly month but anticyclonic so perhaps the south was considerably warmer and somewhat sunnier in the south.

The only specific date I remember the weather was 29 July (a Sunday) which had textbook sunshine, large Cu and scattered showers in a NW-ly presumably, with thunder in the late afternoon. It was the first occasion I can remember thunder in relatively cool weather, I think it must have been around then that I started understanding that thunder could occur in cool polar air as well as hot humid air. (The northwest didn't seem to get autumn/winter thundery activity in the same way the south coast does).

Edited November 21, 2024 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 09/07/2024 at 22:41, LetItSnow said:

Something remarkable about January 1979 is how "perfect" the synoptics were for cold in the sense that they were so close to failiure. Low pressure often cut south enough to allow relatively modest uppers to bring widespread snow. That or low pressure developing within cold uppers. Very knife edge stuff. I think even with the same exact synoptics a month like it would be impossible to recreate now as marginal synoptics rarely cut it anymore.

The synoptics frequently look unimpressive in Jan 1979, with many days of westerlies or even SW-lies mixed in with easterly spells. It looks comparable with Dec 1981, and very much less impressive than Feb 1986.

If I had to guess the temps and weather conditions of Jan 1979 in the southern UK looking at the archives then I would say:

1st-5th very cold

6th-8th very mild with SW-lies, drizzle in places

9th-10th close to average, 10th very wet (rain) with a low moving in WNW-ESE

11th-13th NNW-ly to NW-ly, cold but not drastically so

14th  anticyclonic SWly, so mild

15th and 16th anticyclonic S-ly, dull, temps close to average

17th-19th easterlies back, cold

20th low moves north, widespread heavy rain, becoming slightly milder than average

21st-24th easterlies mostly come back, cold

25th WSW-lies in south, northerlies in north, average-to-mild in south, cold in north

26th/27th cold northerlies

28th mild and very wet, SSW-lies

29th cyclonic, mild, very wet

30th weak northerly, chilly

31st ridge with WSWlies, dry, mildish

So cold at times but many days that look mild. The impression is of a month that would be cold but not as dramatically as it was.

In fact in Southampton it looks like Jan 1979 was indeed distinctly unimpressive with a mean max of 4.8, just 0.7C lower than Jan 1997!  Indeed, by max temp, both Jan 1985 (4.5C) and Jan 1987 (4.3C) were colder, and Feb 1986 (2.8) considerably colder.

It looks like both Jan 1979 and Dec 1981 were months when the southernmost counties were "cheated" out of much of the cold and snow, though the latter was memorably cold and snowy in NW Sussex, so perhaps only the extreme coastal fringe.

However at Heathrow it was colder (3.8C max) and Ringway, the closest station to where I lived in 1979, was just 2.7, according with my memories of a notable month. If we go by Heathrow (1.8C) in 1986, it looks like, by my own personal experience, Feb 1986 was the coldest month I ever experienced with Jan 1979 second, and Jan 1987 third.

The Ringway archives show just how cool it is compared to the south in the summer in particular. No month from 1977 to 1982 inclusive managed a 21.0C mean max, and no month from 1977-81 (except August 1981 at exactly 20.0C) and 1985-88 even managed a 20.0C mean max. Even summer 1989 only managed one month above 21C, and that was only 22C. We moan at our southern summers sometimes but it seems Ringway is seriously, seriously cool in the summer.

Edited November 21, 2024 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

One interesting stat is just how dry August 1979 was at Heathrow with just 33.4mm rainfall. This makes it drier than August 1981 or 1989.

This month is generally regarded as an unsettled and mostly wet one.

This was the first month I lived down south (NW Sussex), and even though it was changeable, rather cloudy and not especially warm, I don't remember it being particularly wet either aside from a few potent showers in the first few days and an organised thunderstorm on the 23rd.  I also remember a couple of damp and gloomy days around mid-month but the overall impression was of a lot of fairly benign, cloudy but dry days with unremarkable temperatures. So perhaps the month was indeed a good deal drier than the synoptics suggest - maybe like a 1970s - hence cooler - version of August 2019.

Mind you there are a good number of really quite dry Augusts at Heathrow - a surprisingly high number recording less than 40mm. August 1994 is another surprisingly dry one.

June and July were also dry at Heathrow, with none exceeding 40mm, so summer 1979 appeared to be a notably dry one.

Edited November 24, 2024 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow]

 Summer8906 1977-1982 an interesting time for the instance of dry but not particularly warm summer months. Though that may be a general more common thing in the old climat.

A warning about the August 1989 total though, a whopping amount of it fell on one day, IIRC the 10th. Hence a false impression of a "wetter" month.

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow Yes, I remember many of those summers as being often usable, though 1978 and 1980 were wet. 1977 is too far back for me to remember properly, with just fleeting memories (mostly of benign conditions) - I still lived in the northwest then. Of course we got lucky in 1981 with the long fine spell exactly coinciding with the school holidays. At that age I didn't care about June or even early July: late July and August was everything.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Summer8906

[MarkW]

 cheeky_monkey Yes, pretty much spot on. I recall my folks getting their double glazing fitted around 1983.