Hi Col.

Late December 1995 was indeed very cold. Insanely so more in Scotland where very luckily I was staying with friends for Xmas and new year. And saw minus 20 on their garden thermometer  However the average daily CET for the spell came in at minus 2.45 which is why it doesn't make the top ten from 1900 to the present day.. It lasted six days and is there on Kev's list at the top of this thread.

I'd forgotten that spell was really only exceptional from northern England northwards rather than the CET area.

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Top ten sub zero five days or longer spells that occurred or started in January.

Top ten January spells by severity of cold

1. 1838 -5.14
2. 1894 -4.40
3. 1881 -4.38
4. 1795 -4.10
5. 1780 -4.05
6. 1982 -4.03
7. 1867 -3.90
8. 1795 -3.79
9. 1820 -3.57
10. 1963 -3.56

Top ten January spells by duration ( consecutive days)

1. 1776 26 days
2. 1963 23 days
3. 1795 23 days
4. 1881 20 days
5. 1823 18 days
6. 1838 14 days
7. 1820 14 days
8. 1987 12 days
9. 1880 12 days
10. 1867 11 days

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Top ten sub zero five days or longer spells that occurred or started in February.

Top ten February spells by severity of cold

1. 1895 -4.81
2. 1929 -4.61
3. 1956 -4.08
4. 1855 -3.71
5. 1816 -3.29
6. 1841 -2.94
7. 1917 -2.92
8. 1827 -2.78
9. 1985 -2.72
10. 1847 -2.61.

Top Ten February spells by duration ( consecutive days)

1. 1947 24 days
2. 1855 18 days
3. 1895 15 days
4. 1956 13 days
5. 1986 13 days
6 1991 12 days
7 1917 12 days
8. 1929 11 days
9. 1850 11 days
10. 1841 11 days

Interesting to note that despite its extraordinary duration that in terms of cold 1947 does not make it into the top ten for severity of cold.
indeed there are at least 12colder February spells than 1947 on Kevbrads list.

 

 

Earliest and latest start to sub zero spells lasting 5 days or longer.

Sub Zero Spells starting in November by earliest start date. (there 5 such spells)

1. 1904 23rd November
2. 2010 26th November
3. 1978 27th November
4. 1879 30th November
5. 1796 30th November

Sub zero spell starting in November by severity of cold

1.1879 -3.37
2.1904 -1.96
3 2010 -1.90
4.1796 -1.78
5.1978 -0.60

Sub zero spells starting in November by duration

1. 1796 12 days
2. 2010 9 days
3. 1879 9 days
4. 1978 5 days
5. 1904 5 days

Latest sub zero spells
Sub zero spells starting on or after 26th Feb ( there are 8 such spells)

Sub zero spells by latest starting date.

1. 1837 20th March
2. 1845 12th March
3. 1814 6th March
4. 1800 5th March
5. 1839 5th March
6. 1947 1st March
7. 2018 26th Feb
8.1929 26th Feb

Late sub zero spells by severity of cold

1. 1845 -2.;92
2. 2018 -2.24
3. 1929 -1.76
4. 1947 -1.64
5. 1814 -1.56
6. 1839 -1.32
7. 1800 -0.82
8. 1837 -0.70

Late sub zero spells by duration.

1. 1947 8 days
2. 1845 6 days
3=
All with 5 days
2018
1929
1839
1837
1814
1800

Interesting to note 2018 being the second coldest late sub zero spell on record.

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Fascinating stats there.

 

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Sometimes (very rarely in modern times) there have been winters  with multiple sub zero spells equal to or exceeding 5 days in duration.

In the 247 years since 1772 there have been 44 such winters.

27 of these occured between 1788/89 ( the first such winter in the record) and 1895 ( the last such winter in the 19th Century.)

The remaining 17 such winters have occured between 1902/3 and 2010/11 ( this being the most recent)

28 multiple spell winters had 2 sub zero spells

10 multiple spell winters had 3 sub zero spells

5 multiple spell winters had 4 sub zero spells

1 multiple spell winter had 5 sub zero spells.

Somewhat interestingly the 4 and 5 sub zero spell winters are NOT all clustered back in the little ice age.

They are as follows

5 sub zero spells

1962/63

4 sub zero spells

1978/79
1981/82
1878/79
1794/95
1788/89


The biggest gap between multiple subzero spell winters is 15 years between 1962/63 and 1978/79.
although there was a 10 year gap between 1985/86 and  1995/96 and then a 13 year gap from then until 2009/10.

If we just look for the longest gap between any winter with a single sub zero spell then that currently is the 8 year gap between 2001
and 2009. there were also gaps exceeding 7 years between the spells of 1909 and 1917 and and also 1881-1888.
A six year and 10 months gap also followed the winter of 1947 until the next sub zero spell in 1954.

Following the the beast from the east in Feb/March 2018 the gap between subzero spells is 1 year 6 months 14 days and counting.....................

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Hi there - new to the forum and just wondering if it's time to dust down this thread? 

I think we've had two more spells:

8-13 Feb 2021 (ave: 0.7c)
8 Dec 2022 and ongoing (current ave: -1.2c).

Presumably the current run will end up being 8 or 9 day and maybe we'll get another next week?!) 

EDIT - Feb spell was -0.7c! 

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Hi there - new to the forum and just wondering if it's time to dust down this thread? 

I think we've had two more spells:

8-13 Feb 2021 (ave: 0.7c)
8 Dec 2022 and ongoing (current ave: -1.2c).

Presumably the current run will end up being 8 or 9 day and maybe we'll get another next week?!) 

Welcome to TWO Oxonian. Such fascinating stats. Is the February 21 stat -0.7c? As wouldnt count if above zero.

 

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Thank you! 

yes, sorry -0.7c!

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I'd completely forgotten about the Feb 21 cold spell - I guess because it occurred during lockdown ?

Checking back, I had a run of 5 ice days (9th - 13th inc)  with a max of 0.1c on the 8th.   So at least one of the 3 CET stations (Pershore) would  have had at least the same and a sub zero ave for the period.

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I'd completely forgotten about the Feb 21 cold spell - I guess because it occurred during lockdown ?

Checking back, I had a run of 5 ice days (9th - 13th inc)  with a max of 0.1c on the 8th.   So at least one of the 3 CET stations (Pershore) would  have had at least the same and a sub zero ave for the period.

I remember that cold spell in February 2021 very well and in that winter overall, we actually had quite a lot of snow compared to what we have typically been getting in other recent winters (some including last winter, which were complete non-events as far as any sort of winter weather was concerned).

Back in February 2021, I was coming towards the end of my 5th year on this forum (yes, it's hard to believe that it has been so long ago since I first joined this forum as that moment still seems just like yesterday, and the time since then has passed really quickly) and I was already well into recording all of the data for various weather stations here in Edinburgh and reporting that data in the relevant threads on this forum.

In that month, I can recall very well, the day when the temperature at Edinburgh Gogarbank dropped to -12.6°C. Even with this latest cold spell, it has never been as cold as that since then and back then, I can remember that other parts of the UK were recording ice days, including Brian's own neck of the wood down in the south of England.

My thought was that if places in the south of England can get an ice day, surely we can get one in Edinburgh as a result of being much further north. Yet despite the fact that we had that really cold night which I have just mentioned, we still just could not get a single ice day here in Edinburgh at that time. That frustrated me a lot at the time, and I'm sure that some of that frustration probably came through in some of my posts on this forum back then.

At that time, we had not had an ice day in Edinburgh since 1 March 2018 and as it turned out, we continued to not get any ice days after that up until yesterday when we finally at long last, got that elusive first ice day at Edinburgh Gogarbank since 1 March 2018 with today also looking likely to go down as an ice day as well.

Looking back on that, I can understand to a certain extent, what might have caused that. By February, it is already getting a lot lighter at nights and so, the Sun is much stronger then than what it is at this time of the year. This means that had that really cold spell in February 2021 happened a couple of months earlier, there is a good chance that we might have gone on to get that ice day after such a cold night, and I believe that today is showing that up really well as a very good example of that.
 

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February 2021 was a genuine classic IMBY - awesome spell!

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Thank you! 

yes, sorry -0.7c!

I hadn't realised that spell was so cold.  If was frustrating here as we only got about 3cm of snow. Not terrible but just a few miles east had 10cm+.

Already two 5 day negative CET spells in the 2020s. Will the 20s be a classic decade?  We can but hope!
 

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I was in Sussex at the time and I think we had 5 or 6 very sunny ice days. Pretty impressive. 

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I'd completely forgotten about the Feb 21 cold spell - I guess because it occurred during lockdown ?

Checking back, I had a run of 5 ice days (9th - 13th inc)  with a max of 0.1c on the 8th.   So at least one of the 3 CET stations (Pershore) would  have had at least the same and a sub zero ave for the period.

And this is why you shouldn't look up data after a bottle of wine ......   That's actually all wrong - we didn't have any ice days here!   My lowest max for that period was +0.8c  (hence it never stuck in my memory).   I was looking at the wrong data column last night 🙄

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9 sub zero means in the bag after today. Will tomorrow (Saturday) give us a 10th?

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Feb 2021 was a much better cold spell than this one in Leeds. Only a little less cold (a straight week with daily means below 0C), but a very good snowfall around the 12th. Lowest temp was -5C, only a degree higher than this cold spell, and one ice day on the 14th (Leeds Bradford Airport had at least 4 ice days, possibly 6 as two days have missing data). 

We didn’t think that cold spell was a classic though, and this one certainly isn’t either.

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Fantastic stats there,and many thanks for posting.

This current run of sub zero CET days is now the longest since January 2013,almost 10 years!

This has been a historic cold spell and extraordinary on the back of such a warm year.

Despite this epic cold spell we are still going to see the first 11c annual CET for 2022

10 in a row - a good effort. Longest since the 11 day run of 17-27 December 2010. 

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10 in a row - a good effort. Longest since the 11 day run of 17-27 December 2010. 

10 days or more has only happened 18 times previously since 1900 as per the chart below although a lot more cpmmon before that

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-1.88 the provisional average for this ten day 'ice spell'