Memories of 1981

[Sunny76]

This is a year I wished I was old enough to remember vividly. Only 5 at the time.

Don't recall anything about the winter of 80-81, but I think it was milder than average, and no snow fell in the South until April.

The standout event was the severe thunderstorms of August 5th/6th 1981, when during one morning storm the sky went so dark it was like midnight. My mum was babysitting at the time, and all i remember were the lights in our living room being on at 9am, and the long periods of pitch black darkness. Haven't witnessed anything like this ever since, and don't think the London region has experienced a more severe storm.

The cold winter of 81/82 seems like a classic, and a December to rival 2010 and 1995. Strange how very cold Decembers have come about every 14-15 years (1981,1995, and 2010) during the last 40. Maybe we are due another one during the middle of this decade.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Sunny76

[damianslaw]

Only 2-3 no memories whatsoever. I think it was quite an interesting year weatherwise lots of variety. April snowfalls a notable event especially being so late in the month.

December 81 was snowier here than 1995 and colder. Snowier than 2010. Probably snowiest last 100 yrs or so.

[cheeky_monkey]

was still very much at school in 1981..dont remember much about the winter of 80-81 so must have been pretty average ..went to West Germany in the first two weeks of April ..had the heavy wet snow end of April..summer that year wasn't hot but must have been pretty dry particularly August ..mum had a new kitchen? i think fitted and my and my brother built a house out of the cardboard packaging in our garden and we used to sleep in it ..obviously if it was wet would have fallen apart but we used it for a good 3/4 weeks that summer..Autumn was cold and wet esp October from memory of course December 1981 was cold and snowy esp the two weeks leading up to Xmas..i cant compare it to Dec 2010 as i was living in Canada ..so for me the coldest Dec i have experienced in the UK

[Norrance]

My main memory of 1981/82 was getting a bus up from London to Perth in mid December 81 which had no heating. They actually had to make unscheduled stops at service stations for people to warm up on one of the coldest nights of the year. Luckily I had some skiing wear with me and was able to keep myself and my girlfriend at the time reasonable warm. Also memorable for the best snow that I ever saw in London. A decent fall in December before I left and a good blizzard in January just after I came back down.
Back at home there was about a foot of level snow at Christmas which had frozen solid to such an extent that we could play football on it without breaking through the crust. The only other time in the UK that I have seen snow like that was in late Feb 2010 again in Highland Perthshire when deep wet snow froze solid and lasted for weeks.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Norrance

[A Face like Thunder]

Yes, Sunny76, the storms of 6th August and the snowiest December of the 20th century were the standout events of an otherwise largely forgettable year weather-wise.

[Norrance]

24 minutes ago, A Face like Thunder said:

Yes, Sunny76, the storms of 6th August and the snowiest December of the 20th century were the standout events of an otherwise largely forgettable year weather-wise.

Actually this post and Sunny76's has reminded me of the storms of 5/6th August. Worked in Tottenham Court Road and remember the darkness and the street lights coming on in the early afternoon and the frequent lightning strikes. Was trying to impress a new girlfriend in my new car the previous evening when a storm struck and I found out that the windscreen wipers did not work!

[damianslaw]

I've seen pictures from about 20 December 1981 heavy snow falling and the roads full of snow. It wasn't a white christmas in the sense no snow fell, but plenty on the ground, indeed very similiar to 2009 in this respect, the snow also stuck around until about the 28th before a temporary thaw happened, though I've seen pictures from New Years Day 1982 with snow still on the pavement, so I'm not sure if any major thaw took place before the cold came back around 7th..

[Don]

Was only 5 at the time but remember the snow arriving on the 8th December and then had a significant fall on the 11th.  It snowed during the afternoon of the 13th, but turned to rain during the evening and a thaw set in.  The snow then returned in the run up to Christmas, although not a huge amount where I was living.  More significant snow returned on the 8th/9th January 1982, lasting more than a week before winter fizzled out early.

[cheeky_monkey]

On 19/04/2022 at 08:07, cheeky_monkey said:

.summer that year wasn't hot but must have been pretty dry particularly August .

did i bit of research for my own benefit to see if my memory was playing tricks and hey presto summer 1981 was the 8th driest on record for my location at the time and August 6th driest on record tied with 1976

[Sunny76]

2 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

did i bit of research for my own benefit to see if my memory was playing tricks and hey presto summer 1981 was the 8th driest on record for my location at the time and August 6th driest on record tied with 1976

It had the best August since 1976, but was still a poor summer overall, and part of a poor run of summers since 1977. 

[cheeky_monkey]

17 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

It had the best August since 1976, but was still a poor summer overall, and part of a poor run of summers since 1977. 

actually i think retrospectively it was a decent summer and not poor..it was dry and not particularly hot which makes it pretty decent in my book...however it was often cloudy..looks like June and July were similar in someway to August 2006 as a modern day equivalent

Edited April 20, 2022 by cheeky_monkey

[Sunny76]

32 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

actually i think retrospectively it was a decent summer and not poor..it was dry and not particularly hot which makes it pretty decent in my book...however it was often cloudy..looks like June and July were similar in someway to August 2006 as a modern day equivalent

A summer month like August 2006 is poor in my book. I think a cloudy summer by many would be regarded as poor, even if the weather is dry. 
 

Most people prefer a 1983 or 84 summer with longer spells of warm sunny or even hot periods. 

[LetItSnow!]

1 hour ago, cheeky_monkey said:

actually i think retrospectively it was a decent summer and not poor..it was dry and not particularly hot which makes it pretty decent in my book...however it was often cloudy..looks like June and July were similar in someway to August 2006 as a modern day equivalent

 

32 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

A summer month like August 2006 is poor in my book. I think a cloudy summer by many would be regarded as poor, even if the weather is dry. 
 

Most people prefer a 1983 or 84 summer with longer spells of warm sunny or even hot periods. 

Looked at the synoptics throughout the summer of 1981, June looks like it probably would have been the worst. Brief plume on the 1st then mostly unsettled in the first half but some warm ridges at times. The second-half had exceptionally cool NNE winds with the 0degC line as far south as the Midlands, but with no real low pressure - I can imagine that would have been very dull, drizzly and cold. July looked mostly cool and dull with winds veering mostly between the west and the north with only a few warm ridges here and there. August however looked mostly dominated by high pressure. I know it's not considered a classic month but it had to have been very dry in at least some places. There was an absence of any big areas of low pressure and much of the month was dominated by high pressure. I haven't checked, but I imagine August 1981 was a month of warm days and cool nights. If the pattern had been slightly different and had more of a chance to build some homegrown heat it probably would have been a hot month.

 

Other than that though, I imagine dry and cool would have been the theme of summer 1981. CM's memories of dry weather check out, especially August.

Edited April 20, 2022 by LetItSnow!

[Sunny76]

3 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

 

Looked at the synoptics throughout the summer of 1981, June looks like it probably would have been the worst. Brief plume on the 1st then mostly unsettled in the first half but some warm ridges at times. The second-half had exceptionally cool NNE winds with the 0degC line as far south as the Midlands, but with no real low pressure - I can imagine that would have been very dull, drizzly and cold. July looked mostly cool and dull with winds veering mostly between the west and the north with only a few warm ridges here and there. August however looked mostly dominated by high pressure. I know it's not considered a classic month but it had to have been very dry in at least some places. There was an absence of any big areas of low pressure and much of the month was dominated by high pressure. I haven't checked, but I imagine August 1981 was a month of warm days and cool nights. If the pattern had been slightly different and had more of a chance to build some homegrown heat it probably would have been a hot month.

 

Other than that though, I imagine dry and cool would have been the theme of summer 1981. CM's memories of dry weather check out, especially August.

Maybe that’s why the storms were severe that summer. The cold air was still knocking about in June and July. These days there’s not enough cool or cold air to bump into the warm air to produce cracking storms.

Mind you, we only have to go back to 2016-18 when most of the country experienced some nasty storms. Especially the ones in July 2017. 

[Summer8906]

Sorry, a bit late on this, but one of the earliest years I have quite a lot of memories of. Still of primary-school age though, so a few gaps compared to the years of my teens and twenties. A classic childhood August, and one which IMO is vastly under-rated and under-reported. August 1981 was better than any August I've experienced from 2004 onwards.

The brightness of the winter stood out, I remember January being particularly sunny, and fairly mild. I distinctly remember a notably sunny spell at the end of Jan, though one day - Fri Jan 30 - had all-day fog below about 150m. The previous night (29/30) I'd been staying with a friend who lived on a hill and awoke to glorious sunshine, but on going into school (in the village, below 150m) it turned into all day fog. The weekend though was sunny if I remember right.

Feb was sunny and generally frosty if I remember right. Standout memory was the lying snow on Sunday Feb 22nd: of the years from 1978 to 1987 (Jan year), the only ones not to produce lying snow for me were 1980 and 1984. The snow fell first thing in the morning and lasted through the morning though sadly milder air got in during the day and it thawed.

March was apparently one of the wettest on record though oddly I have few memories. I do remember a few wet days and some mild cloudy dry days but I don't recall the wetness standing out.

April seemed to be mostly dry and cloudy with a sunny spell before Easter. This was of course the year of the historic heavy late April snow on the 26th. Sadly I was in the one area unaffected - the SE - and I remember that Sunday as just being wet, though it did feature some thunderstorms which was interesting at least. Oddly I was unaware of the historic event going on elsewhere in the country - and we did generally watch the news.

I remember May as being unsettled and showery with frequent cyclonic rPm air, something which I later verified was actually the case. Synoptics suggest a very wet month with a low anchored just west of Ireland most of the month. Standout memories are of thunderstorms. One occasion was I think Thursday 7th, or possibly Thursday 14th - synoptically both showed a cyclonic southerly (more so on the 7th). It had been cloudy all day then a storm broke perhaps around 4pm - 5pm. I do remember being surprised at the time that thunder followed cloudy weather - I think I had it in my mind at the time that thunder only occurred when visible Cbs developed in the heat of the day (based on reading weather books).

There was another occasion on a Saturday with thunder around 8am but I cannot recall the date. Looking at the archives on wetterzentrale, most of the Saturdays could have qualified. Finally, another occasion of thunder around tea time on Wednesday 27th, following a non-descript cloudy day.

June started with another memorable storm, June 1 (Monday) finally produced a warm sunny day, followed by a very notable overnight storm. Very similar indeed to what happened two years later May 31-June 1 1983, another brief warm spell and overnight storm following a poor cyclonic SW-ly May. This was followed by a couple of days of showery Pm air and then I think it then became dry, cloudy and non-descript for a while. On June 11 we left for a holiday to SW France (south of Bordeaux), my first trip out of the UK so can't comment much on the rest of June, but dry, cloudy and cool seemed to be typical. Meanwhile in SW France it was mostly warm and sunny but not especially hot, before becoming very cool indeed and wet on the journey home up the west coast.

July was cloudy, cool and changeable if I remember right. Specific memories are vague: I recall a showery July 16th and a distinctly wet, torrential at times July 23rd on a school trip to London. This was then followed by a rapid improvement and the Royal Wedding week was warm and sunny. Finally a Biscay Low threatened storms late on the 31st though I only heard one rumble.

As I said above August was an absolute classic summer month - for prolonged fine and settled weather, beaten IMO only by 1991 and 1995. It started dull as the thundery Biscay low moved away before a few days of warm sunny weather from the 2nd-5th. I experienced the famous storms of the 6th, no day-darkness but frighteningly loud thunder and some really dramatic Cbs around breakfast time. These were then followed by about three days of dull weather as the thundery low retreated, before fine sunny weather arrived back on the 10th.

Exact sequence of events a bit unclear after that, but my memory is of mostly warm sunny weather for the rest of August, excepting a brief cool blast around the 19th with Pm air. The bank holiday weekend was notably warm and sunny if I remember right and such conditions continued into September.

The weather broke suddenly on the 10th with an active cold front moving eastwards unopposed by the formerly persistent high. The front brought significant rain but no thunder despite the lengthy warm spell before it. The following weekend brought a notable spell of convective Pm weather. The morning forecast of Friday 11th was the first time I heard the phrase "showers from the word go", and while that was not entirely accurate, it was showers from mid-morning, which is more usually what happens in any case. Sat 12th had less daytime showers I think but after dark, vivid Cu towers and lightning displays were visible over the Channel (this is from NW Sussex). Sun 13th was a classic showery day of sunny start and prominent Cbs developing midday and afternoon.

It then turned both dull and wet though, with Mon 14th having an advancing warm front and light-moderate rain. Tues 15th was dry and then memories become a bit more fragmented. I seem to remember a night-time trough within Pm air producing overnight thunderstorms early on Fri 18th, then Sat 19th was wet with a fairly major storm. Sat 26th I was in London and it was a wet start followed by further classic showery conditions, though an anomaly was that, after the showers died down close to sunset, they then became more widespread with distant lightning after dark, so perhaps a further trough.

October memories are more restricted but I recall it was generally dull and sometimes wet. I do seem to recall a major storm (would probably be named these days) with winds producing a power outage on Saturday 24th, followed by cyclonic Pm weather with further troughs producing 'joined-up showers' during the day on Dark Sunday, the 25th - and then a sunny half-term Monday on the 26th. Rest of half term was drier and more settled, I think, but rather cloudy. (Why do they time the autumn half-term to be the first week of GMT? Did then, still do now AFAIK).

November again has relatively few memories but I recall a sunny and frosty Remembrance Sunday and a dry cloudy Sunday towards the end of the month, also perhaps some days of Pm weather and some other sunny frosty days. Apparently the month was milder and cloudier than I remember, though.

December was of course another of those historic months. In terms of my specific memories: I remember one heavy fall of snow quite early in the month, on a weekday in the afternoon, which then partly melted before a forecast of a major storm overnight Sunday 13th which threatened blizzards. In the event we got the winds but it only produced rain - we were too far south. It then briefly became milder on Monday 14th (rPm air with showers IIRC) but soon became very cold again though without a thick snow cover. I recall partly melted snow which had re-frozen. I recall a Sunny Christmas Day but then it became milder and cloudy late in the month.

So an interesting year with a notable Aug and Dec, and what seemed quite a lot of thunder.

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Summer8906

[Thundery wintry showers]

I wasn't alive then, but it strikes me as possibly one of the more interesting years.  The distribution of sunshine was quite unusual: it was a very dull year overall in the south, but quite a sunny one in the north-east.  Trevor Harley's account of the year notes that the sunniest region of the UK was along the coast of eastern Scotland and the far north-east of England.

The winter of 1980/81 was one of the sunniest on record in London, with some high diurnal ranges from sunny anticyclonic weather over much of England at the end of January and beginning of February, but it was unremarkable sunshine wise in the north and west.  A succession of short-lived northerlies in early to mid-January resulted in a relatively high frequency of snow despite the month as a whole being mild, especially in the north.  Glasgow was heavily hit by snow midmonth.

March 1981 stands out as warm, very dull and wet, but with a snow event in the north around the 22nd/23rd.  April saw a particularly dramatic switch-around from a warm first half to snow in the second half, and even Exeter had a bit of lying snow near the end of the month.  May looks like it was wet and, in places, thundery.

Summer 1981 was relatively dry but cool and cloudy overall for most, but August 1981 had a fair amount of dry sunny weather as well as some intense thunderstorms in places early on.  

Autumn 1981 had a fair amount of interest, a warm sunny first half of September followed by a very wet second half, a very cold October which was also very sunny in the north-east, and an exceptional outbreak of tornadoes on 24 November.

December 1981 was probably the snowiest December of the last 100 years for much of the UK, although in the north it was not generally as cold as December 2010.  Some exceptionally low minima in the second week, and a scattering of heavy frontal snowfalls.

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

I wasn't alive then, but it strikes me as possibly one of the more interesting years.  The distribution of sunshine was quite unusual: it was a very dull year overall in the south, but quite a sunny one in the north-east.  Trevor Harley's account of the year notes that the sunniest region of the UK was along the coast of eastern Scotland and the far north-east of England.

Thinking about it that would make sense, because although January, February and August were sunny, much of the spring, summer and autumn seemed cloudier than average. However the second half of summer, December, the sunny winter, and the frequent storms did indeed make it an interesting year.

1981 was probably the last in a sequence of pretty unsettled years, starting in 1977. It's interesting we often seem to have runs of settled and unsettled years; 1982-84 were generally more settled and drier.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 20/04/2022 at 17:42, cheeky_monkey said:

actually i think retrospectively it was a decent summer and not poor..it was dry and not particularly hot which makes it pretty decent in my book...however it was often cloudy..looks like June and July were similar in someway to August 2006 as a modern day equivalent

The nice thing about summer 1981 was how the good weather co-incided almost exactly with the school summer holiday - and given the age I was, I considered summer 1981 for many years a classic summer, it's almost as if June and the first half of July didn't matter then. I only started to take a more objective approach to rating summers later in the 80s.

Indeed, given I can't really remember summer 1976, I would say August 1981 was the first prolonged fine summer weather I can remember. The first three summers I have reasonable memories of - 1978, 1979 and 1980 - were all a bit rubbish.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

4 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Sorry, a bit late on this, but one of the earliest years I have quite a lot of memories of. Still of primary-school age though, so a few gaps compared to the years of my teens and twenties. A classic childhood August, and one which IMO is vastly under-rated and under-reported. August 1981 was better than any August I've experienced from 2004 onwards.

The brightness of the winter stood out, I remember January being particularly sunny, and fairly mild. I distinctly remember a notably sunny spell at the end of Jan, though one day - Fri Jan 30 - had all-day fog below about 150m. The previous night (29/30) I'd been staying with a friend who lived on a hill and awoke to glorious sunshine, but on going into school (in the village, below 150m) it turned into all day fog. The weekend though was sunny if I remember right.

Feb was sunny and generally frosty if I remember right. Standout memory was the lying snow on Sunday Feb 22nd: of the years from 1978 to 1987 (Jan year), the only ones not to produce lying snow for me were 1980 and 1984. The snow fell first thing in the morning and lasted through the morning though sadly milder air got in during the day and it thawed.

March was apparently one of the wettest on record though oddly I have few memories. I do remember a few wet days and some mild cloudy dry days but I don't recall the wetness standing out.

April seemed to be mostly dry and cloudy with a sunny spell before Easter. This was of course the year of the historic heavy late April snow on the 26th. Sadly I was in the one area unaffected - the SE - and I remember that Sunday as just being wet, though it did feature some thunderstorms which was interesting at least. Oddly I was unaware of the historic event going on elsewhere in the country - and we did generally watch the news.

I remember May as being unsettled and showery with frequent cyclonic rPm air, something which I later verified was actually the case. Synoptics suggest a very wet month with a low anchored just west of Ireland most of the month. Standout memories are of thunderstorms. One occasion was I think Thursday 7th, or possibly Thursday 14th - synoptically both showed a cyclonic southerly (more so on the 7th). It had been cloudy all day then a storm broke perhaps around 4pm - 5pm. I do remember being surprised at the time that thunder followed cloudy weather - I think I had it in my mind at the time that thunder only occurred when visible Cbs developed in the heat of the day (based on reading weather books).

There was another occasion on a Saturday with thunder around 8am but I cannot recall the date. Looking at the archives on wetterzentrale, most of the Saturdays could have qualified. Finally, another occasion of thunder around tea time on Wednesday 27th, following a non-descript cloudy day.

June started with another memorable storm, June 1 (Monday) finally produced a warm sunny day, followed by a very notable overnight storm. Very similar indeed to what happened two years later May 31-June 1 1983, another brief warm spell and overnight storm following a poor cyclonic SW-ly May. This was followed by a couple of days of showery Pm air and then I think it then became dry, cloudy and non-descript for a while. On June 11 we left for a holiday to SW France (south of Bordeaux), my first trip out of the UK so can't comment much on the rest of June, but dry, cloudy and cool seemed to be typical. Meanwhile in SW France it was mostly warm and sunny but not especially hot, before becoming very cool indeed and wet on the journey home up the west coast.

July was cloudy, cool and changeable if I remember right. Specific memories are vague: I recall a showery July 16th and a distinctly wet, torrential at times July 23rd on a school trip to London. This was then followed by a rapid improvement and the Royal Wedding week was warm and sunny. Finally a Biscay Low threatened storms late on the 31st though I only heard one rumble.

As I said above August was an absolute classic summer month - for prolonged fine and settled weather, beaten IMO only by 1991 and 1995. It started dull as the thundery Biscay low moved away before a few days of warm sunny weather from the 2nd-5th. I experienced the famous storms of the 6th, no day-darkness but frighteningly loud thunder and some really dramatic Cbs around breakfast time. These were then followed by about three days of dull weather as the thundery low retreated, before fine sunny weather arrived back on the 10th.

Exact sequence of events a bit unclear after that, but my memory is of mostly warm sunny weather for the rest of August, excepting a brief cool blast around the 19th with Pm air. The bank holiday weekend was notably warm and sunny if I remember right and such conditions continued into September.

The weather broke suddenly on the 10th with an active cold front moving eastwards unopposed by the formerly persistent high. The front brought significant rain but no thunder despite the lengthy warm spell before it. The following weekend brought a notable spell of convective Pm weather. The morning forecast of Friday 11th was the first time I heard the phrase "showers from the word go", and while that was not entirely accurate, it was showers from mid-morning, which is more usually what happens in any case. Sat 12th had less daytime showers I think but after dark, vivid Cu towers and lightning displays were visible over the Channel (this is from NW Sussex). Sun 13th was a classic showery day of sunny start and prominent Cbs developing midday and afternoon.

It then turned both dull and wet though, with Mon 14th having an advancing warm front and light-moderate rain. Tues 15th was dry and then memories become a bit more fragmented. I seem to remember a night-time trough within Pm air producing overnight thunderstorms early on Fri 18th, then Sat 19th was wet with a fairly major storm. Sat 26th I was in London and it was a wet start followed by further classic showery conditions, though an anomaly was that, after the showers died down close to sunset, they then became more widespread with distant lightning after dark, so perhaps a further trough.

October memories are more restricted but I recall it was generally dull and sometimes wet. I do seem to recall a major storm (would probably be named these days) with winds producing a power outage on Saturday 24th, followed by cyclonic Pm weather with further troughs producing 'joined-up showers' during the day on Dark Sunday, the 25th - and then a sunny half-term Monday on the 26th. Rest of half term was drier and more settled, I think, but rather cloudy. (Why do they time the autumn half-term to be the first week of GMT? Did then, still do now AFAIK).

November again has relatively few memories but I recall a sunny and frosty Remembrance Sunday and a dry cloudy Sunday towards the end of the month, also perhaps some days of Pm weather and some other sunny frosty days. Apparently the month was milder and cloudier than I remember, though.

December was of course another of those historic months. In terms of my specific memories: I remember one heavy fall of snow quite early in the month, on a weekday in the afternoon, which then partly melted before a forecast of a major storm overnight Sunday 13th which threatened blizzards. In the event we got the winds but it only produced rain - we were too far south. It then briefly became milder on Monday 14th (rPm air with showers IIRC) but soon became very cold again though without a thick snow cover. I recall partly melted snow which had re-frozen. I recall a Sunny Christmas Day but then it became milder and cloudy late in the month.

So an interesting year with a notable Aug and Dec, and what seemed quite a lot of thunder.

 

 

 

to read such a photographic account of years past is so interesting to read and as a weather/weather records enthusiast, it always is fascinating to read. your posts as well as others are greatly appreciated!

[Metwatch]

On 20/04/2022 at 17:42, cheeky_monkey said:

it was a decent summer and not poor..it was dry and not particularly hot which makes it pretty decent in my book

One of the very few summers which had the rare combo of being cool but also quite dry, shown nicely on this scatter graph via Starlings Roost Weather

Edited February 7 by Metwatch