It's probably not unrelated that though 76/77 was average here, 1978 started very cold and snowy and 78/79 was worse.
Then December 81 soon after that was exceptionally cold and very snowy.

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It's probably not unrelated that though 76/77 was average here, 1978 started very cold and snowy and 78/79 was worse.
Then December 81 soon after that was exceptionally cold and very snowy.

WE had 2008/9 that was cold at times with some snow around, then 2009/10 had the pre-Xmas cold/snowy spell followed by the heavy snow in early Jan (which last almost to the end of the month on the ground across large areas of Midlands-north, then the very cold and prolonged late Nov-Dec 2010, then that Jan-Mar on-off spell with lots of snowfalls in 2013.

Admittedly not quite on the scale of that 78-82 period, but it's curious how that's two clusters of good winters with only scant pickings (in comparison) either side

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Admittedly not quite on the scale of that 78-82 period, but it's curious how that's two clusters of good winters with only scant pickings (in comparison) either side

Winters 84-85, 85-86 and 86-87 were all notable for periods of cold or severe cold.

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Too early for the north to say WIO but IMO its game over for the south - possibly forever now.
I've been deluding myself since 2014 believing that we will get a repeat of those days in the 80's, 90's, mid 00's and 09-13 and that it was just a blip...no more, its over.
Last week showed me how far AGW has progressed.

Of the 5 stages of grief I've now reached Stage 5...its all ok.

Back to the models I'll be happy with this. Temps possibly in the low teens would feel grand with light breezes and a little sunshine. Lengthening days too as life slowly starts to wake up from its 5 week dark autumn period.
 

Got to say I agree with this, in the Eighties the cold spell we just had would have been far colder, Darren said we need to get -8 at 850 for snow really, and that was achieved quite easily back then. Now we need a proper Arctic outbreak or Siberian easterly to achieve this.
Back in the day, a slight easterly waft would almost certainly achieve this. The north is different (Behind the wall hahaha).
I don't think it is that -8c isn't achievable now, but the reservoir of that colder air is much smaller and far more easily modified now. These lower temps only seem to be in pockets now.
A good example was the easterly at the beginning of the last cool spell. Previously we would have had days of -8 etc, but now just a couple of hours as small pool of colder air travelled over us before milder air arrived.

My advice, get a decent fence and and AC unit for the future, because storms are going to get stronger and the heat will be stronger to.

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Got to say I agree with this, in the Eighties the cold spell we just had would have been far colder, Darren said we need to get -8 at 850 for snow really, and that was achieved quite easily back then. Now we need a proper Arctic outbreak or Siberian easterly to achieve this.
Back in the day, a slight easterly waft would almost certainly achieve this. The north is different (Behind the wall hahaha).
I don't think it is that -8c isn't achievable now, but the reservoir of that colder air is much smaller and far more easily modified now. These lower temps only seem to be in pockets now.
A good example was the easterly at the beginning of the last cool spell. Previously we would have had days of -8 etc, but now just a couple of hours as small pool of colder air travelled over us before milder air arrived.

My advice, get a decent fence and and AC unit for the future, because storms are going to get stronger and the heat will be stronger to.

I appreciate we are drifting off topic.

I hadn't appreciated just how far things had deteriorated with regard to winter snow until I looked up weatherspark.com and found hour by hour data for nearby Manston Airport.

Locally we consider Dec 81, Feb 83, Apr 83, Jan/Feb 85, Nov 85, Feb 86, Jan 87 and Nov 88 as stand out moments, however, when you delve into the individual winters on a grander scale we used to get things like snowy breakdowns from the west, channel lows, snow showers on a direct northerly, polar lows and snow on the back edge of cold fronts ! Yes, snow on the back edge of cold fronts !.not just in Jan and February but from November to April. So common that it barely got mention.

In January 1984 we got snow showers on a WSW'ly for goodness sake.

Did you know November 1980 saw widespread snow cover during the first and last weeks of the month !



Its the little things...I found a video from 31/1/1991 this morning of snow in Southern England.....hang on I thought the snow didn't arrive until February but sure enough there it was, a low pressure system was pushing eastwards into the country into cold air that was slowly establishing ahead of  the main event a week later.

These days such an event would almost cause the internet to collapse !

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Got to say I agree with this, in the Eighties the cold spell we just had would have been far colder, Darren said we need to get -8 at 850 for snow really, and that was achieved quite easily back then. Now we need a proper Arctic outbreak or Siberian easterly to achieve this.
Back in the day, a slight easterly waft would almost certainly achieve this. The north is different (Behind the wall hahaha).
I don't think it is that -8c isn't achievable now, but the reservoir of that colder air is much smaller and far more easily modified now. These lower temps only seem to be in pockets now.
A good example was the easterly at the beginning of the last cool spell. Previously we would have had days of -8 etc, but now just a couple of hours as small pool of colder air travelled over us before milder air arrived.

My advice, get a decent fence and and AC unit for the future, because storms are going to get stronger and the heat will be stronger to.

Social media doesn't help either. More often than not, self proclaimed weather experts (whom I've never seen posting on TWO) hype up any wintry potential if a random model run shows a whiff of something 10 or 15 days away. 

Discussion forums like this are much better for enthusiasts like us. Checks and balances naturally occur. 

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I appreciate we are drifting off topic.

I hadn't appreciated just how far things had deteriorated with regard to winter snow until I looked up weatherspark.com and found hour by hour data for nearby Manston Airport.

Locally we consider Dec 81, Feb 83, Apr 83, Jan/Feb 85, Nov 85, Feb 86, Jan 87 and Nov 88 as stand out moments, however, when you delve into the individual winters on a grander scale we used to get things like snowy breakdowns from the west, channel lows, snow showers on a direct northerly, polar lows and snow on the back edge of cold fronts ! Yes, snow on the back edge of cold fronts !.not just in Jan and February but from November to April. So common that it barely got mention.

In January 1984 we got snow showers on a WSW'ly for goodness sake.

Did you know November 1980 saw widespread snow cover during the first and last weeks of the month !



Its the little things...I found a video from 31/1/1991 this morning of snow in Southern England.....hang on I thought the snow didn't arrive until February but sure enough there it was, a low pressure system was pushing eastwards into the country into cold air that was slowly establishing ahead of  the main event a week later.

These days such an event would almost cause the internet to collapse !

See, now you've got me remembering all of this! With the current output looking dire for the next 10-14 days, if it's cold weather you're after, it leads me to ask why? I know AGW is going to be the chosen answer, but the cold still escapes in brutal fashion in many other parts of the globe, even to places that haven't had snow since 1950 or 1960 etc etc (although if it happened back then, surely that isn't AGW now causing it) do we really have to wait for the brutal cold to be so devastating that it floods the North Atlantic and turns all our westerly orientated weather into snow and a new ice age begins (sorry, dreaming again). Is it the Jet Stream? Is it just the contrast from our warming world and the bottled up cold that gets released and inevitably fires it up? It would be interesting to know if the USA for example, is colder now in winters than when we used to get one. I also approach each winter with the idea of "is this the one" working on the law of averages and thinking at some point it's got to be. But as each year passes, the further away from it happening we seem to be.

I'll never give up hoping, even if the current models display very little, if any crumbs worth eating.

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I hadn't appreciated just how far things had deteriorated with regard to winter snow until I looked up weatherspark.com and found hour by hour data for nearby Manston Airport.

A nice bit of nostalgia there!

I'm only 44, but already some of the old weather lore has gone, perhaps for the rest of our lives. There were several bits passed down via my gran (who was from the Fuggle farming family, they had a type of Kentish hop named after them):

When snow is fine, there's more behind
(Last seen - a couple of weeks ago! The snow from that easterly started out as tiny flakes, but later in the day heavier, fluffier flakes arrived. Those were the ones that gave a painfully brief dusting)

When snow hangs around, it's waiting for more
(Or a fancier version, I can't remember the exact words. If it's cold enough for snowcover to persist for a few days, the likelihood is it'll be cold enough for more, either from showers or a warm front from the breakdown)

It's "practice" snow
(Again, there would have been a fancier version. I remember this many times in the 80s, I would be a bit upset that the small amount of snow we had was melting, but my mum (via my gran, no doubt) would assure me heavier, deeper snow was on the way. And it usually was!)

This all ties in with what you're saying - while we remember the deep snow of the 80s, there were several times where we had snow on the ground even without a Scandinavian high in full swing, perhaps from a front clipping the south, or even in a brief northerly after a low had moved away. That's the joy of being on the right side of the snow/rain divide, but little did I appreciate it at the time... I thought it was always going to be that way.

In January 1984 we got snow showers on a WSW'ly for goodness sake.

Ah yes, the famed "cold zonality". I have a photo of 4-year-old me in my nan's back garden, near Gravesend, with snow on the ground. It would have been taken during that winter.

I've said for the past 15 years on here that there's no such thing as "cold zonality" (it used to come up quite a bit), and there isn't any more down here. It's why those up north (e.g. Manchester) should really make the most of what they have... as what's happened here will happen there soon enough the way things are going.

Its the little things...I found a video from 31/1/1991 this morning of snow in Southern England.....hang on I thought the snow didn't arrive until February but sure enough there it was, a low pressure system was pushing eastwards into the country into cold air that was slowly establishing ahead of  the main event a week later.

Yes, I remember it snowing at school in that week, we were all disappointed about the way we ended up with a heavy dusting rather than anything more. (My mum, when I moaned about it, assured me it was the usual "practice snow", and it was. Whether the models had picked up on what was about to happen, I don't know!)

I can still remember, incidentally, when the rot set in. It was autumn 1987, and I was excited at the thought of more snow to come (as the preceding years, as far back as I could remember, had had inches of the stuff on the ground). I was 8.
I asked my gran how much snow we might get that winter, and she laughed! She said some winters it doesn't snow at all, and it might not that winter. I thought she was mad, loopy, senile, but she was spot on. We didn't have any snow that winter, and it was much worse than finding out that Father Christmas didn't exist. (I figured that out at the age of 5, then was begged by my mum not to spoil it for my friends!)

The rot may have set in, but the winter didn't break just yet. 1991 saw lots of snow, so did November 1993 - over 6 inches, but the school bus still came. Then there was the duo of 95 and 96, the latter with a wonderful easterly which had snow on the marshes for all of January 97. And after that, a long, long wait until 2005, and even that was marginal as hell really... we had 2 weeks with snow every day, and snow on the ground throughout, but further east (Thanet, Dover etc) there was very little.

I don't claim to know what the future holds, but on current trends you'd have to be gloomy, at least down here. I guess it means when (if!) we get another proper easterly we'll all be documenting it, cherishing it, as we may never see the likes again in our lifetimes. (The great weather historian Philip Eden, who said the 2005 easterly would be the last true easterly, certainly won't see another - he died of dementia in January 2018, ironically just a few weeks before the Beast from the East, a very short but brutally cold easterly.)

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A nice bit of nostalgia there!

I'm only 44, but already some of the old weather lore has gone, perhaps for the rest of our lives. There were several bits passed down via my gran (who was from the Fuggle farming family, they had a type of Kentish hop named after them):

When snow is fine, there's more behind
(Last seen - a couple of weeks ago! The snow from that easterly started out as tiny flakes, but later in the day heavier, fluffier flakes arrived. Those were the ones that gave a painfully brief dusting)

When snow hangs around, it's waiting for more
(Or a fancier version, I can't remember the exact words. If it's cold enough for snowcover to persist for a few days, the likelihood is it'll be cold enough for more, either from showers or a warm front from the breakdown)

It's "practice" snow
(Again, there would have been a fancier version. I remember this many times in the 80s, I would be a bit upset that the small amount of snow we had was melting, but my mum (via my gran, no doubt) would assure me heavier, deeper snow was on the way. And it usually was!)

This all ties in with what you're saying - while we remember the deep snow of the 80s, there were several times where we had snow on the ground even without a Scandinavian high in full swing, perhaps from a front clipping the south, or even in a brief northerly after a low had moved away. That's the joy of being on the right side of the snow/rain divide, but little did I appreciate it at the time... I thought it was always going to be that way.


Ah yes, the famed "cold zonality". I have a photo of 4-year-old me in my nan's back garden, near Gravesend, with snow on the ground. It would have been taken during that winter.

I've said for the past 15 years on here that there's no such thing as "cold zonality" (it used to come up quite a bit), and there isn't any more down here. It's why those up north (e.g. Manchester) should really make the most of what they have... as what's happened here will happen there soon enough the way things are going.


Yes, I remember it snowing at school in that week, we were all disappointed about the way we ended up with a heavy dusting rather than anything more. (My mum, when I moaned about it, assured me it was the usual "practice snow", and it was. Whether the models had picked up on what was about to happen, I don't know!)

I can still remember, incidentally, when the rot set in. It was autumn 1987, and I was excited at the thought of more snow to come (as the preceding years, as far back as I could remember, had had inches of the stuff on the ground). I was 8.
I asked my gran how much snow we might get that winter, and she laughed! She said some winters it doesn't snow at all, and it might not that winter. I thought she was mad, loopy, senile, but she was spot on. We didn't have any snow that winter, and it was much worse than finding out that Father Christmas didn't exist. (I figured that out at the age of 5, then was begged by my mum not to spoil it for my friends!)

The rot may have set in, but the winter didn't break just yet. 1991 saw lots of snow, so did November 1993 - over 6 inches, but the school bus still came. Then there was the duo of 95 and 96, the latter with a wonderful easterly which had snow on the marshes for all of January 97. And after that, a long, long wait until 2005, and even that was marginal as hell really... we had 2 weeks with snow every day, and snow on the ground throughout, but further east (Thanet, Dover etc) there was very little.

I don't claim to know what the future holds, but on current trends you'd have to be gloomy, at least down here. I guess it means when (if!) we get another proper easterly we'll all be documenting it, cherishing it, as we may never see the likes again in our lifetimes. (The great weather historian Philip Eden, who said the 2005 easterly would be the last true easterly, certainly won't see another - he died of dementia in January 2018, ironically just a few weeks before the Beast from the East, a very short but brutally cold easterly.)

Very interesting write up there Retron. And love the lore!
I recall in either Jan or Feb 2008 there was an easterly sourced not from a Scandinavian, but from a high over western Russia. (The mark of a true easterly). It was a very dry affair but the breakdown brought in copious amounts of snow before the milder air inevitably moved in. 
 

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Whilst talk of all this snow is wonderful (and yet also a little sad), having been born in 1975, the thing I seem to miss most is just the length of cold  periods. 

I certainly remember many nights in almost every winter where we would get ice patches to go sliding on, usually requiring our school shoes for their lack of grip. I also recall many morning in winter months when the farmers field was frozen/frosty enough to take the short cut to school without getting mud all over my shoes. 

Icicles were commonplace, perhaps the advance in home heating has something to do with not seeing those anymore but I can't even recall the last time I saw any on garages etc. 

I realise this is a melancholic lament and as such could have a touch of 'rose tinted glasses' about it, but even with that, the lack of longer cold periods, whether dry or snowy, in the last 25 years makes me wonder whether I made the most of them or took them a little for granted.

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I certainly remember many nights in almost every winter where we would get ice patches to go sliding on, usually requiring our school shoes for their lack of grip. I also recall many morning in winter months when the farmers field was frozen/frosty enough to take the short cut to school without getting mud all over my shoes. 

My parents used to let me pour water on the concrete path in the garden to make ice slides. I can remember watching the ice freeze within minutes. 

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Many a time I remember walking to school with frozen puddles after overnight rain had cleared to a cold frosty morning. Won't see that these days.

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My parents used to let me pour water on the concrete path in the garden to make ice slides. I can remember watching the ice freeze within minutes. 

It's remarkable how many kids could stay entertained, for so long, from just a simple patch of ice. 

I also remember the newly covered road into the new housing estate had a reasonable incline on it, many a nights we would hang about at the side of the road waiting for the cars to start to get stuck. If we pushed them up to the top of the hill we got a 'thank you' at worst and sometimes a 20p for our efforts.

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Icicles were commonplace, perhaps the advance in home heating has something to do with not seeing those anymore but I can't even recall the last time I saw any on garages etc.

It doesn't. Up until two years ago, I had the same windows and heating system that were here when I moved in as a toddler, back in 1982. Icicles were commonplace, but these days they're scarce. I now have new windows and a new boiler, but the same insulation (or lack of it) - my roof will always be bare after a snowfall!

The key to icicles is having plenty of snow - a few inches, so it fills up the gutters. You then need temperatures to be a degree or more below freezing by day (very rare here), then nature takes its course: the heat from the house slowly melts the snow, which goes over the filled-up gutter and drips from below. It then freezes - bonus points for a breeze, which can introduce either a slant or, if you're really lucky, a "unicorn horn" spiral pattern into the icicle. Ideally the snow would be topped up multiple times.

The last time all the above were met here was in 2018, in the Beast. Before then, believe it or not it was 1997! The winter before that, December 1995, saw incredible icicles locally. Not on my house (as my dad unsportingly used to snap them off, saying they'd pull down the gutter - he was right, of course, even if I didn't see it that way), but on the bungalow at the end of the road. No worries about the gutter coming down there, as it ended up as a thick column of ice all the way from the gutter to the floor!

If you have a couple of minutes, the local rag has an article showing the snows of 1987 here in Kent.

Sample picture below (in the town a few miles away - similar scenes here, but again my dad snapped off our icicles before they got anywhere near that big!)

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/they-were-sending-raf-helicopters-up-like-taxis-260628/

IMAGE. Members enable at bottom of page

 

 

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Many a time I remember walking to school with frozen puddles after overnight rain had cleared to a cold frosty morning. Won't see that these days.

I remember reading in the Beano about these things called "slides", which apparently you created by scuffing your feet on an icy patch (this was in the 80s, so ice was common). I tried it once at the bus stop (probably not a good idea, and probably annoying for anyone trying to catch a bus!) and went flying... never did get the hang of it! The teachers at school forbade anyone from making a "slide", but annoyingly there were never any pools of water long enough to make one anyway.

These days the kids won't even many chances at making one, although there was plenty of ice around last week... and it stayed for a few days, which was nice.

Frozen puddles were very common, of course, and it was fun when you could see water trapped under the ice... a bubble effect.
 

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Thanks for posting that Darren, great images.

I'll have to dig out some old photos my dad has of 1979 here in Stockton, his Capri was completely covered in snow. Again in 85 (and I think 83?) we had some really sizeable dumps of snow and cold weeks. That's 3 significant events in my first 10 years and all in my memory (just) so it's no wonder I have chased the cold most of my life.

 

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It was fun cracking frozen puddles under foot as well. It created a special sort of sound. 😁

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My parents used to let me pour water on the concrete path in the garden to make ice slides. I can remember watching the ice freeze within minutes. 

Have you ever had it cold enough to try the hot water trick, as seen online? It's where you throw a mug of boiling water in the air, and it "poofs" and freezes before hitting the ground.

I had a go at it in 2018, as it was -14.2 when I got back from work (the school 12 miles away being closed, but I didn't find out until I got there).

It was impressive - half the water did indeed freeze into glittering motes of ice, the rest plopped into the snow.

 

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Thanks for posting that Darren, great images.

I'll have to dig out some old photos my dad has of 1979 here in Stockton, his Capri was completely covered in snow. Again in 85 (and I think 83?) we had some really sizeable dumps of snow and cold weeks. That's 3 significant events in my first 10 years and all in my memory (just) so it's no wonder I have chased the cold most of my life.
 

I suspect there's a whole generation of us who were enchanted at a young age by snow... and a large subset of that who've been looking for the "hit" of snow again ever since!

How lucky we were to experience it... my younger colleagues at work, I think, thought I was exaggerating when I regailed them with tales of a foot of snow, or being cut off due to snow, or going on the coach to school and having snow towering over it on both sides, or having bread and milk airlifted in (which of course happened in 1987 - the Chinook landed at the top of our road, in the fields, and Army guys doled out free bread and milk! I thought this was very normal, of course, if only I knew...)

Just as the Great Storm of 1987 put a lifelong dread of high winds into me, those snowy years when I was very young instilled a love, and a longing, for snow.

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The chances are that the weather patterns, given their cyclical nature, will revert back to that 80s type scenario in future decades, probably after most of us are long gone. 

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