We have yet another wet, mild New Years day in 2015 but it wasn't always like this.

26 years ago today brought probably the coldest and snowiest New Years Day on record with widespread snowfalls and low temperatures, this was of course during the great winter of 1978/79 but in some parts of the Country notably the North West New Years Day brought the heaviest snowfalls of the entire winter.

1978 had ended bitterly cold and snow lay across 90% of the UK, only Cheshire stood out as still green, across Southern England the snow lay 10-20cms deep flowing a blizzard on the 30th December.

New Year came in with temperatures below -10c across many parts of the UK and close to -15c across Scotland, however, the day dawned dry across most areas.

Following the bitter easterly wind of the previous day pressure built quickly across the UK during the night and became centred over Cornwall, milder air moving round the west of this weak anticyclone engaged a shallow depression approaching North Scotland and a marked warm front formed in the Irish Sea during the morning.

This warm front became slow moving in the Irish Sea during New Years day and snow formed quickly ahead of the front across SW Scotland and NW England, during the afternoon this snow became very heavy in a large area of Western Britain stretching from Glasgow to Birmingham, transport was severely disrupted across large areas of the North West and the M6 became one long traffic jam from Cumbria to Staffordshire. I was stuck in a snowbound snarl up on the M6 near Preston and it took 9 hours to do the 175 miles between Penrith and Birmingham.

The chart below is for 6pm on the 1st January and you can see the warm front stuck in the Irish Sea, note heavy snow falling at Birmingham Airport with a temperature of -4c, this was one frontal snowstorm that was not marginal.

 

 

 

During the night the snow pulled away from the west Midlands but a new area of very heavy snow spread into North West England, the Manchester area was badly hit with snow lying 15cms-20cms deep by 9am on the 2nd January.

The warm front did introduce some slightly milder air to coastal areas around the Liverpool Bay but this was the exception and the snow returned to Liverpool Airport before dawn leaving a further 6cms. At Carlisle in Cumbria further heavy snow during the early hours of the 2nd combined with temperatures of -7c to provide some real Arctic conditions.

The snow persisted for another 6 days before a temporary thaw on the 7th and the rest of course is history.

Andy

 

Andy

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I remember that like the back of my hand, I was 12 at the time and was attending a boarding school at Brighton but was at home here at Folkestone for weekends and holiday.
  This winter event had effectively done the job of extending my school's Christmas holiday for another two weeks because conditions were just too treacherous (now there's a word I haven't used in a long time) for the school coach to take me back to school, which made it all the more awesome for it!
  By the time conditions slowly returned to normal later on in January, I remember seeing massive piled up snowdrifts as the coach wound its way through the Kent and Sussex countryside, there was also a lot of freezing fog as the mild air tried to push in from the Atlantic. 

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Froze were the days!

Ice on the insides of the window.  Milk bottles with tops pushed out by expanded frozen cream, powder snow - something of a novelty, rubbish for snowballs but made the best drifts - 6 feet just outside my front door.  The Hillman Avenger getting stuck in the snow and having to help my Dad dig it out in a howling easterly gale with a temperature of -5c.  Just awesome!!!!!!

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Froze were the days!

Ice on the insides of the window.  Milk bottles with tops pushed out by expanded frozen cream, powder snow - something of a novelty, rubbish for snowballs but made the best drifts - 6 feet just outside my front door.  The Hillman Avenger getting stuck in the snow and having to help my Dad dig it out in a howling easterly gale with a temperature of -5c.  Just awesome!!!!!!

Yes i remember that spell as it was the first time i had experienced diesel waxing up in the tractors. It was a real pain till we knew what to do which was add parafin to the diesel although now i have forgotten the mix ratio. Water troughs were freezing up completely and for a number of years we had a gap in one hedge where we had set fire to the trough and caught the hedge alight