What is the heaviest snowfall rate you have ever seen / captured, ideally in the UK?

[Metwatch]

As many more will possibly see their first snow of the winter in the coming days, I was wondering what is the heaviest you've seen snow fall ideally in the UK, but globally would also be interesting to know!

For me it would have to be the 29th December 2020, just before midday here. Unfortunately it melted in around 15 minutes afterwards, but it had to be close to 6-8cm per hour! if only it lasted an hour or 2 and the temperature was a degree lower from 0.7C!

Edited December 1, 2023 by Metwatch
Added the video

[Zak M]

Heaviest I've seen was either from the 24th Jan 2021 or the snow showers at the end of March last year. I don't have many photos/videos from those events unfortunately

[matt111]

Probably during the only time I've seen thundersnow back in 2003. The ground was completely covered within a couple of minutes of it starting. 

[summer blizzard]

Heaviest was 21cm from a single event on 6th Jan 2010 but that was at about 200m and falling onto existing snowcover several centimeters deep and iced with a 10 hour event.

Other than that I recall New years Eve 2003, massive flakes for 6 hours, 9cm. 

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by summer blizzard

[A Face like Thunder]

The Fylde snowstorm of 5th - 6th February 1996, easily the heaviest in my 35 years in the NW of England, and Blackpool / Cleveleys, so sea level as well.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

5th Jan '98 I think

[WinterOf47]

I lived in Barrie Canada for 7 years. I actually chose to live there because it was in the snow belt.  We’d get lake effect snow when the wind came from a certain direction, and the rates of accumulation could be 5-10cms an hour and a squall could get stuck for hours over one location. I went to bed one night about 11.00pm and there was maybe 2 cms on the ground, and got up at 7:00am with 45cms…and the roads had been ploughed! (clearing the plough poop from the end of the drive in -20 was my least favourite chore). Incredibly 2 kms down the road they’d had nothing. 

The thing about that kind of accumulation though was that it would quickly compact to about 70% of that depth as the air gets trapped as it falls so quickly…like the air in duvet. One winter we had temps below zero from Jan 6th to March 20th, and about 2m of snow fell, but it only measured 75cms in my yard. It was very dense. It was still awesome though.

Then I came back here

Edited December 2, 2023 by WinterOf47

[Decemberof2010]

1 hour ago, summer blizzard said:

Heaviest was 21cm from a single event on 6th Jan 2010 but that was at about 200m and falling onto existing snowcover several centimeters deep and iced with a 10 hour event.

Other than that I recall New years Eve 2003, massive flakes for 6 hours, 9cm. 

 

25 January 1995. 45cm in 3 hours In Leeds

January 1995 United Kingdom snowfall - Wikipedia

EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[summer blizzard]

Sadly I was too young to remember that.

I recall vague memories of summer warmth in 94 and the sun in 95 and the snow in early 96 and 97, the snow of April 98 and then the rains of 00. 

Was only 5 years old in Jan 95 granted.

[MP-R]

In recent years Feb 01st 2019 is probably the heaviest snowfall rate for my location.

Going back, the thundersnow on Jan 28th 2004 is etched in my memory. It’s probably the only time I’ve seen snow fall in sheets like torrential rain.

[Metwatch]

Perhaps southern parts of Lake District today for some

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Around NYE 1978 in Swansea, we had drifts as high as the front door.  Also in December 1981, the snow level was over 2 feet.  My 15 month old sister standing in garden with the snow level to her head.  Jan 1987 massive snow drifts again in Swansea…the legendary easterly.

 

BFTP

[Weather-history]

14 hours ago, Decemberof2010 said:

25 January 1995. 45cm in 3 hours In Leeds

January 1995 United Kingdom snowfall - Wikipedia

EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

 

[Weather-history]

Of recent times, the snow that fell as Storm Christoph, 20th Jan 2021,  moved away was amazing. Between 9.30pm and 9.45pm, it was bucketing it down. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Weather-history

[carinthian]

No live shots then but The Polar Low of Feb 1969. 18" dumped on our farm between Knutsford and Macclesfield between 9am and 5pm. Temp was down to -7c just after passage. 4 foot drifts across our lane .

C

[johnholmes]

35 cm 30 Nov-1 Dec 2010, did a summary of this with photos, can try and find it if wanted

[virtualsphere]

9th Feb 2007.  We had deeper snow in 2010 but that fell over a longer period.  Although we had a dusting on the 8th, this pretty much fell in a single afternoon.  Unfortunately it rained the following day so there was little chance to make the most of it!

 

[SummerShower]

23 hours ago, MP-R said:

In recent years Feb 01st 2019 is probably the heaviest snowfall rate for my location.

Going back, the thundersnow on Jan 28th 2004 is etched in my memory. It’s probably the only time I’ve seen snow fall in sheets like torrential rain.

Both of these events hold true here too.

1st Feb 2019.  About 2 inches fell overnight, which was predicted.  What wasn't predicted was the additional 7 to 8 inches that fell in 3-4 hours that Friday afternoon.

Jan 28th 2004.  Nearly 2 inches in just half an hour in that thundersnow event.

2 more stick out in this area for the rate it came down:

1. December 21st 2009.  Again, unforecast.  There were snow remains from previous falls, but we weren't expecting the 4 inches in 2 hours that afternoon.

2. April 6th 2008.  Almost as intense as the Jan 04 event.  That Sunday morning, 3 inches fell in about an hour and a half.  However, as it was April, it didn't last long when the sun came out after, and only patches remained the next day.  This event also contained a typical winter positive lightning strike about 5 miles away, but was ducted in the cold air, and sounded like the end of the world.

2 minutes ago, SummerShower said:

**

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by SummerShower

[AderynCoch]

17th December 2010 was pretty good (Liverpool city centre):

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by AderynCoch

[Frigid]

In the last 10 years.. 

29th Jan 2015

4th March 2016

28th Feb 2018

30th Jan 2019

28th Dec 2020

20th Jan 2021

23rd Jan 2021

28th Nov 2021

..since then we've largely missed out on snow events, including the ones in Dec 2022, March 2023 and just yesterday.

All these dates delivered at least a few centimetres of snow, some had blizzard conditions which delivered bouts of snow in a few hrs (4/3/16,30/01/19,20/01/21).

So yeah, not a lot to account in the last decade. 

 

[alexisj9]

We'll this happened last year, December cold spell in about 20mins, during a very heavy shower that was mostly sleet.

Even though it got rained on all day during London's pasting the next day, bits of it survived the week.

Edited December 3, 2023 by alexisj9

[Roger J Smith]

I wasn't there personally but I read on Irish weather sites that parts of Wicklow and Wexford had near 70 cm snowfalls from storm Emma 28 Feb into 1 mar 2018. One person said snow was so heavy that it crushed a barn roof. Amounts of 40 cm were reported in Dublin both then, and around 28 Nov and 21 Dec 2010 during epic cold northeasterly winds. 

I could give you a long list of personal obs from Canada, my own heaviest snowfall actually seen was about 80 cm in early April 1975, a storm that was followed by clear, cold weather and daily freeze-thaw cycles combined with strong winds to create drifts that froze solid at night after softening up in the glare of April sun. This was about 150 km north of Toronto. I also saw aftermath of 150 cm falls in Jan 1976 in London, ON, drifts and piles were still up to about 3m in height a week after the snow fell. As another reader posted, Ontario snow belts get very heavy falls and very sharp dividing lines between piles of snow and no snow at all. I now live near a ski resort, snowfall around here is adequate for that but not often excessive on a daily basis, it tends to keep coming a few cm a day for weeks on end. Vancouver BC does not always see a lot of winter snow but a couple of winters out of twenty-five recent ones managed one or two 30-40 cm storms. 

[JoeShmoe]

Havent got pics of it, but remember the red warning we had in Edinburgh on Feb 28 2014, the snow that came down that afternoon was nuts in terms of how heavy it was and how much settled so fast

Red and amber weather warnings across UK

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

BBC Weather explains what the different alerts mean after the Met Office issued a red warning in Scotland.

 

[cheeky_monkey]

the great south west Blizzard of February 1978...even beats anything i have witnessed here in Canada..where obviously it snows a lot 

[Derbyshire_snow]

Boxing day 2014 in Sheffield has to be up there never seen snow like it.

It was like a blanket of snow and turned everything white seemingly in an instant and within several minutes there was cms of snow never seen anything like it.