Winter 1995/96 vs Winter 1996/97

[Summer8906]

3 hours ago, Weather-history said:

I remember lying snow here New Year's Eve night 1993. There was snow over the hillier suburbs of Greater Manchester during that day as I recall visiiting my Nan in Pendlebury and there was melting snow lying. During the evening a cluster of showers which brought snow here and it was still lying New Year's day morning 1994

This shows the often sharp difference in westerly conditions between the north and south in winter. I remember what I was doing on New Years Eve 1993 and it was a bright but fairly mild westerly day. There were showers around I think but none where I was.

I do remember a cold start to Jan 1994 though with a frost.

As for snowy weather around New Year, one of my childhood memories is heavy falling and thick lying snow on New Year's Day 1979. Aside from that it's barely ever even cold at New Year, it seems, but 1996/97 was probably the best otherwise with a patchy cover and occasional light snow showers.

We seemed to have a long run of bad luck in this respect with a breakdown to milder weather occurring just before New Year, including 1995/6, 2000/1, 2003/4 and also (kind of, as the colder weather was very transient) 2002/3.

[MP-R]

9 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

 

We seemed to have a long run of bad luck in this respect with a breakdown to milder weather occurring just before New Year, including 1995/6, 2000/1, 2003/4 and also (kind of, as the colder weather was very transient) 2002/3.

Winter 2002/03 was an interesting one. Although December was incredibly dull overall, the snow around the 10th/11th was some of the earliest I had seen in December in my lifetime. Then the relentlessly wet Christmas/New Year period. Then the sudden switch to bitter cold Jan 03rd and all the flooded fields froze. Going for a walk on that first weekend in January with snow flurries falling on fields that resembled an ice rink was quite something.

 

On the subject of this thread, I'd probably have to pick 95/96 overall as preference for winter, although my location got more snow in Dec 96 than 95. I'd take the first half of Jan 97 over 96, but then the rest of Jan and Feb 96 over 97. I'd then take spring 97 over 96, but summer 96 over 97. 

[Don]

1 hour ago, Summer8906 said:

I do remember a cold start to Jan 1994 though with a frost.

There was a sudden and unexpected period of heavy snow during the evening on the 6th January 1994, courtesy mainly of evaporative cooling.  Parts of the south east had 6 inches of snow and I think North Hampshire was among one of the worst hit areas.  Do you remember this event?

Edited May 27, 2022 by Don

[Summer8906]

On 27/05/2022 at 13:30, Don said:

There was a sudden and unexpected period of heavy snow during the evening on the 6th January 1994, courtesy mainly of evaporative cooling.  Parts of the south east had 6 inches of snow and I think North Hampshire was among one of the worst hit areas.  Do you remember this event?

Yes, I remember this one. It had been cold and wet all day and then it suddenly changed to heavy snow and gave a decent covering, before thawing fairly rapidly over the next two days (which were not especially cold, close to or only very slightly below average). In the middle of a cyclonic, Atlantic-driven spell too so particularly unexpected.

Interesting event and the only heavy snow event in January I experienced from 1988 to 2009, inclusive.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Summer8906

[Don]

1 hour ago, Summer8906 said:

Yes, I remember this one. It had been cold and wet all day and then it suddenly changed to heavy snow and gave a decent covering, before thawing fairly rapidly over the next two days (which were not especially cold, close to or only very slightly below average). In the middle of a cyclonic, Atlantic-driven spell too so particularly unexpected.

Interesting event and the only heavy snow event in January I experienced from 1988 to 2009, inclusive.

Yes, I remember there had been a lot of rain preceding this event and I think some places were flooded.  February 1994 had a short sharp easterly mid month which delivered snow but again was short lived.  However, it turned colder again the following week with a little more snow.  Following the non descript winters of 1991/92 and 1992/93, 1993/94 was definitely more interesting and November 1993 was cold with many eastern parts having snow on the 20th/21st.  The only other January I had heavy snow preceding 2010 was the 8th and 30th January 2003. 

[HafrenLMP1]

I can recall the two events mentioned previously;

Snow - Feb 1994: as it was my birthday, and the Winter Olympics were taking place in Lillehammer; it makes it seem real when the weather is similar.

Snow - Jan 1995; in what had been a pretty mild/ dull winter. I was working in Wigan, and it started snowing about Friday lunchtime...but nobody thought anything of it. However, 90 mins later it was as heavy with no sign of it stopping. Getting to the M58 motorway was interesting, what should have taken 15 mins, took nearly 2 hours.....

 

I think I preferred 1995/96 as it was longer lasting; we were still getting snow into February 1996. Whilst there was snow in November/December 1996, after New Year it turned milder, and the usual grey, mild dross.

 

[LetItSnow!]

Temperature anomaly maps for winter 1996 show that we just about missed out on the worst of the weather despite it being cold overall. to our east it was exceptionally cold overall. this seemed to happen quite a few times in this era, with 1995/96, 2002/3, 2005/6 all having quite or very cold winters just overseas but never quite impacting us the same way. 

Edited May 30, 2022 by LetItSnow!

[Summer8906]

1 hour ago, LetItSnow! said:

Temperature anomaly maps for winter 1996 show that we just about missed out on the worst of the weather despite it being cold overall. to our east it was exceptionally cold overall. this seemed to happen quite a few times in this era, with 1995/96, 2002/3, 2005/6 all having quite or very cold winters just overseas but never quite impacting us the same way. 

Interesting though that much of France had a mild winter in 1995/96 so we were lucky the jetstream was not that little bit further north. Perhaps not too surprising given the low track seemed to be across northern France much of the time. Switzerland also had a mild winter, so presumably a disappointing ski season. I'd imagine the south-western half of France must have had an extremely wet winter, too.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Summer8906

[SqueakheartLW]

5 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

Temperature anomaly maps for winter 1996 show that we just about missed out on the worst of the weather despite it being cold overall. to our east it was exceptionally cold overall. this seemed to happen quite a few times in this era, with 1995/96, 2002/3, 2005/6 all having quite or very cold winters just overseas but never quite impacting us the same way. 

I imagine if you could redo that anomaly map minus those 3 mild weeks in January it would be a different story for the UK

[Don]

1 hour ago, SqueakheartLW said:

I imagine if you could redo that anomaly map minus those 3 mild weeks in January it would be a different story for the UK

Yes, the UK does not look like it had a particularly cold winter on that map (would do today I know!).  Even taking into account the 3 mild weeks of January, I would have thought that map would have suggested a colder winter here!

[LetItSnow!]

in comparison, here is a temperature anomaly map of Europe for the winter of 1996/1997.

[Don]

18 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

in comparison, here is a temperature anomaly map of Europe for the winter of 1996/1997.

Interesting, winter 1996/97 was milder than average for northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Don

[damianslaw]

4 hours ago, Don said:

Interesting, winter 1996/97 was milder than average for northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The mild second half to Jan and very mild Feb cancelled out the cold Dec and start to Jan. 

Winter 95-96 was quite episodic akin to 12-13 in some respects. Dec was cold but not consistently so especially in the south, Jan 96 only produced a cold last 10 days and Feb brought alternating cold and milder periods. 

Edited May 31, 2022 by damianslaw

[danm]

On 23/05/2022 at 12:19, Sunny76 said:

Hands down, 1995/96 was probably one of the best for cold weather, although not much snow in the London region. Still had a light covering on Boxing Day, and another small dusting in February 96.

The 96/97 winter was pretty cold during the early part of December, after a cold November, up until mid January. 
 

 

I seem to remember a couple of decent snowfalls in London at the end of Jan ‘96.