In each case an easterly or north-easterly wind set in in late January. In 1947 it was on the 19th, and -10C 850mb air reached the east coast on the 22nd. In 1956, the cold spell set in with great suddenness, with the wind turning into the east on the 31st and -10C 850mb air arriving on the same day.

1963 was rather different, with January having already been intensely cold of course. In late January an anticyclone was centred close to the UK, with quite mild air at 850mb, though the air close to the surface would still have been cold. But by the 31st, the wind had become a north-easterly and by the end of the day sub -10C air at 850mb was back in SE England and East Anglia. So even February 1963 can be said to fit the template.

In 1986, the wind became an easterly on 30th January. But mild air had previously penetrated deep into Europe, and so it would take some time before really cold air would reach the UK. It was not until 5th February that the -10C isotherm at 850mb reached the east coast.

1986 was the only one of those I was around for, albeit only 6 years old! It was a very cold month with plenty of snow (the latter as per the norm in the 80s), and the snow hung around for weeks. Although depths were never massive - 6 inches or so at most - it drifted in the winds at times, as it alternated between powder and wet snow. There were icicles, of course, and I remember my dad snapping them off the guttering with my mum's broom, much to my disappointment. He said they would pull the guttering down, and I thought that was a daft thing to worry about! Of course these days I'd do as he did.

My grandpa died in early February and his funeral went from our house later in the month. The hearse got stuck in the snow and I remember everyone leaving the house, grabbing shovels and brooms, clearing a path for the hearse to the end of our road (the main road being gritted, but still snow-covered). From then on my mum loathed February with a passion, and was always glad when the month was over. 

Here's a picture my dad took of the main road in the snow, a few days before the funeral. Of course the following winter saw much greater depths of snow, but in my mind that was the beginning of the big change - the great storm in October, then a gradual disappearance of our snowy easterlies...

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/1986.jpg 

Whilst I'm a couple of years your junior,.we grew up during an era when icicles could be sometimes be measured in feet and eastern England snow gates weren't ornamental!

Perhaps we'll get a repeat of February 1991? Even a watered down version may still do the job on what will be the 25th anniversary  of my favourite cold spell! 

Hate to break it to you Ground Hog but 1991 was 35 years ago! Enough to make one feel old isn't it?!!

I like an Easterly too though here in South Wales we generally need a low to bump in from the South West to make it worthwhile otherwise it's often just very cold and dry.

https://durhamukweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/bonacina.html 

The most recent cold February was 2018 at 2.9C - others are listed.

In my part of Surrey, we had an overnight fall of a couple of inches one night at the start of the 1986 spell as the really cold weather arrived, but subsequently we had a lot of sunny (but very cold) weather, which meant that by the second half of February snow only survived in the shade. Then we had another couple of inches on 1st March, right at the end of the cold spell. I think this cold spell was similar to February 1956, and the closer to the east coast you were the more snow you got.

I was born in 1948, and I don't have any clear memories of February 1956. I recall one very frosty spell, but I can't be sure if it was 1956. But by 1962-3 I had fully developed my interest in the weather, and I have clear memories of it.  February actually came as a bit of an anti-climax after the phenomenal end of December and then January! Lots of miserably grey days, but little snow, and a very slow day-time thaw for much of the time, though a full cover just lasted till the end of the month.

I remember the phenomenal icicles from the eaves of our house in 1962-3. I think the installation of roof insulation put an end to those. Nowadays while the weather remains freezing the snow on roofs doesn't melt, but only does so when the thaw comes, when of course the water just drips off the eaves rather than freezing. And of course double glazing and central heating between them put an end to the beautiful frost flowers, that you would find on the windows when you pulled back the curtains in the morning. Not that I would want to do without central heating. I remember in 1962-3 the only place you would really feel warm was in the living room facing a blazing coal/log fire. And even then your back was cold! We did also have a one-bar electric fire, which I think we used off and on in the dining room, and a calor gas heater which we used in the bathroom when someone was having a bath.

synoptics below from the Met Office Diary 19 Feb 1969

I was just turned 14 and it coincided with a geography project at school where we had to record the weather over several weeks - min & max temps and general weather. My dad (he was an environmental health officer for the council) was mates with the guy who took weather readings and arranged for me to accompany him one Saturday morning to watch him take the readings. It was a small wooden hut in a park on the fringe of the town centre - it had an old-style max & min thermometer with the 'pins' inside that had to be reset; a sunshine recorder based on the roof (photosensitive paper that was essentially burned through a lens when the sun was out) and a more modern anemometer on the roof. I came away with some of the official paperwork to put in my coursework (got an A, obviously)

We had weeks of cold but it was mostly dry. I remember we had a round bowl left in the garden for some reason, which had had about an inch of water in the bottom, with a football in it. The football had been almost in the centre so that when the water froze and the ball was removed, there was a kind of large ice polo mint. We did have a small snowfall, because I remember making a modest snowman that used most of the snow in the back garden, but it was only about 3' tall. I used the ice 'polo mint' to make the brim of a hat for the snowman - we've got a pic of it somewhere at my parents' house.

IIRC, we had much snowier winters the two years preceding it - although the snow wasn't long-lived.

The Jan 87 easterly spell was almost dry here - but Jan 88 had some great snowfall.

Easterlies here for any proper cold let alone proper snow. No ifs or buts TBH. Sorry Michael and Martin. The best snow here is the powder snow that blows around, not the stuff that sticks to all and sundry and then freezes into a mess if it even does that before melting.

Looking at the continental temps from that chart not notably cold it seems. Prague -2C. A -6C off the Netherlands an odd one that. Even in the High it's -6 to -10C. Nothing exceptionally cold. So height would have made a large difference for you on Dartmoor. Wet snow of course.

It must have been coastal/ E Kent  snow showers which can nevertheless mount up. At that time I was living in mid-Kent, near Maidstone, and there was a little snow on the ground, maybe 5cm at one stage, which slowly evaporated just leaving patches in the shade. 

Compare JH's recollection from Surrey; and the Bonacina site which only records a major fall in SW England in that Feb, 22-23rd.

Yes, the photo I posted, albeit faded, shows the situation well - several inches already, enough to cover the kerb of the road (around 4 inches high). You can also see the shallow convective cloud so typical of the "lake effect" - we had plenty of showers, which merged into longer periods of snow at times. We saw similar again in 1993: 6 inches of snow in November, sopping wet stuff, and I suggested to my mum that the school bus wouldn't make it so I may as well not go in. She suggested I wait, just in case, and of course the bus came. There was around an inch in Sittingbourne (on the mainland, around 6 miles inland), and indeed it was only the last mile or so before home that the snow really started to pile up.

It's why I've never wanted to move from this part of the world: the North Sea is an absolute snow machine given the right setup. Sadly that's nigh-on impossible to come by these days!

Incidentally aside from the BtfE in 2018 - which for a couple of days equalled anything in the 80s, but was over almost before it began - the most noteworthy "under the radar" February here was the end of 2005, where we had 2 solid weeks with snow falling every day and snow on the ground throughout. Like the 80s/90s spells, the effects were very localised: I wasn't working on the mainland at the time but I understand they had much less snow than we did. 

Here's the same bit of road in 2005 - it really was a cracking spell, even though we had no ice days from it (unlike in the 80s/90s), and there was indeed a bit of drip-drip-drip most days. The sheer amount of snow falling though kept things white and topped-up.

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/2005.jpg 

😂😂😂  That'll explain why I hurt so much after yesterday's digging 👍

In the end, we did get an easterly and it did turn very cold for a while, but it burnt itself out after five or six days and the Atlantic returned. The models gradually toned it down with each run, as is very typical nowadays. We then ended up with a very mild burst in the final week.

It would have been the coldest February since 1986 if it had played out the way it was initially forecasted to.

February 1986 is legendary in SE Kent.  A low upper low / cold pool spinning out of Denmark was forecast to bring 15cms of snow widely to the south east.  In the end it clipped into east Kent delivering 8 inches (25cms) of powder that allowed a minimum temperature a few days later of -13c IMBY and -17c in frost hollows in valley floors.  The powder was topped up in subsequent days but preserved by the coldest February of my lifetime with only slow sublimation, and was added to by a channel low on 1/2  March with more powder (12cms ) and an ice day or two.  The thaw arrived around March 7th, with around 28 days of continuous snow cover.  They don't make easterlies like they used to.

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?mode=0&month=2&day=9&year=1986&map=0&hour=6&type=ncep 

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?mode=0&month=3&day=2&year=1986&map=0&hour=0&type=ncep 

850s above 0c but subzero at the surface.  Old school.

Yes remember that one . Here in east sussex we had a light snow cover for around 5 days . I recall there was some heavier snow in east kent at the end of thag period . There were a few ice days 

In my part of Surrey, 1st March was an ice day, which of course are very rare in March, but though it snowed for most of the day it wasn't that heavy here and only amounted to about 6cm. There was a hard frost that night, but the 2nd was a beautifully sunny day with a quick thaw.

BTW, in "8 inches (25cms)" your conversion is off. 8 inches would be about 20cm or 25cm would be about 10 inches.

Feb 91 is probably the spell that's stuck most in my memory, mostly because I was a bit older and we'd had some milder winters beforehand. We had a lot of snow during that spell over several days and I remember going for a walk on the day the snow arrived as we were sent home from school early - I made a point of walking through some fields exposed to the wind and heavy snow driven in to my face by a strong easterly wind was definitely invigorating. 

Feb 2005 was another one because it was even more of an anomaly against a backdrop of milder winters IMBY. It wasn't ever exceptionally cold but had a lot of days with snow falling and a few decent falls including an entertaining wet snow event where it snowed all day from memory. I think we bottomed out around -12 or -13c at 850 level, which coincided with a day of heavy if relatively brief snow and graupel showers. 

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?mode=2&month=2&day=1&year=1956&map=1&hour=0&type=era®ion=uk 

There was of course the first two weeks of February 2012:-

U.s.weather 31,930 Messages

Subject

*European overview* 1st February 2012  Keith (Southend)G  02/02/2012, 18:49

Otter Valley, Devon - C-c-c-c-c-cold! 6 more weeks of winter Nick Gardner 02/02/2012, 21:23

met office still going for milder weather and near... .02/02/2012, 21:34

Deathly cold    Stan  Widespread frost on Wednesday night: Shap ....Joe Egginton < 03/02/2012, 00:26

Brussels sunny but bitterly cold    Colin Youngs      03/02/2012, 01:03

Today's model interpretation  Darren Prescott  03/02/2012, 05:01

[OBS] Tideswell, Derbyshire -    Norman        03/02/2012, 07:05

I see you were still getting up early Darren!  I remember you were doing DEW's job on USW back  then. I would have loved to have seen your analysis that day. Sadly I only have the headers of the posts now not the content The next day we had heavy snow and those first two  weeks of Feb 2012 I ended up with about 20cm and 4 days of falling snow and 9 days of lying snow.

Bits of this are still on the Feb 2012 TWO Weather Forum on the Internet Archive (with some names from the past)

Don't know if this link works here but this is what I was just looking at

https://web.archive.org/web/20120206204133/http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/yaf_postst6313_Snowfall-Event---Sat-4th-and-Sun-5th-Feb-12-Part-II.aspx 

I was just looking through my browser's weather-related bookmarks, and I found one I'd made for an excellent site about the winter of 1947:

http://www.winter1947.co.uk/EppingWeatherPages/Index.html 

Yes, I've just got my archive of all of the post headers but I redacted the actual email addresses.  You posted one on the 5th Feb entitled "Deja Vu" if you could locate it and let us know what we were saying on that spell.. we probably hadn't realised just how rare it would become after that! The 1947 Winter is something that George Booth wrote and I met him a couple of times living near and being a friend of Ron Button's. When Ron passed away his wife gave me his large collection of weather books so if anybody wants any let me know because my wife wants me to get rid of them! George is now up in Edinburgh and has still has the Swanson Weather Site that might be of interest to some on here. 

That's a blast from the past! I'm pretty sure I was on TWO then but no comments from me as far as I can see. I've had a look at my photo's from the time and it looks like I had a decent fall, maybe 10cm or so.