The uppers in '87 on the left, and the setup on 19th February '78 on the right:

The '87 event had a flow coming around from LP over Italy, right through the region with uppers of close to -25*C... I just can't imagine such conditions.

The spell in '78 is legendary across the SW in particular with multiple snow events, the most severe of which occurred on the weekend of 18th-19th. The 850hPa temperatures were a toasty 0 to -4*C, as was the case for the preceeding few days... but this followed a very cold easterly which had allowed cold to really entrench not just over the UK but over the near continent too.

A lack of entrenched cold to the S and SE of the UK was the main reason why the sliding trough event we just had didn't deliver for much of the south - there was a draw of cold air from the S then SE, but nowhere near the level of cold air across the continent required to overcome the effect of the relatively high sea temperatures in the Channel (and of course those also tend to be lowered as cold entrenches).

In my lifetime (excluding Feb '91 when I was far too young to comprehend the events), there hasn't been one of those 'top drawer' easterlies in the heart of winter (uppers below -15*C with a decent wind), or an active frontal system running into entrenched cold air without drawing up too much 'warmth' from the Channel. Such events truly are rare and special occasions it seems, though I'm often given the impression that they seemed less so during the 60's to 80's as a whole.

Surely what goes around must come around again some day?

My earliest memory of a cold winter would be 1947, although it`s a hazy memory. I remember walking to school as a 5 year old (I wonder how many kids walk to school these days, even in summer, never mind in a severe winter).

I remember walking along the tops of heaps of snow at the sides of the roads where snowploughs had cleared the roads.

There were several times in the 50s when I remember walking up the Buxton Road in Macclesfield to see the huge snowdrifts, and motorists trying to dig their cars out. (we lived on the Eastern outskirts of Macc. at about 450 ft ASL).

The most memorable winter for me must be 1962-63. I spent the entire winter working on a partially completed block of flats in Macc, a building with no doors or windows exposed to the icy Easterly wind.

You can imagine how cold we were, there was a min-max thermometer on site as some work can`t be done at temps below zero such as bricklaying. Most days the temperature climbed up to a maximum of around -3C, it rarely rose to zero for weeks on end.

We had several braziers burning on site and eventually every scrap piece of wood available  had vanished into the fires.

And yet we had no snow, apart from some on Boxing Day 1962 and I don`t think it stayed for long. There were snow flurries from time to time, blowing in on the Easterly wind, but it never settled and I managed to ride to work and back every day on my motorbike.

I don't recall the date, but I am guessing it was sometime during winter 94-95 - the last winter I spent in East Anglia - and the last time I saw a proper snowdrift outside of the Scottish Highlands

If lanes are not buried in drifts, it doesn't matter how cold or snowy it is, it's just not the real deal!

20 years on, I am now resigned to never seeing such a thing ever again

Thats Freezing fog Kev.

Its mentioned on the weather quite a lot in the winter, but rarely produces.  Ive seen it a few times, makes everything look like narnia.

Best way to tell its freezing fog is that

1. its very isolated


2. It coats all surfaces, not just horizontal surfaces.  Even under tables etc.


3. Its foggy

1987, i was 13 at the time and just started taking an interest in weather.

I recall ice on the inside of the windows in East Lancashire for days on end.

From an observing point of view it has to be Dec 2010 in N Yorks when we had many ice days and a min of -17.9c and a max of -10c 

Great photos. Excellent :-)

I can remember cold spells going back to the late 1960s.

The winter of 1979 stands in my mind. But even allowing for the classics in the 1980s I really think the last week of November 2010 and December 2010 has to be the most remarkable.

In December 2010 I had 4 frosts in a row below -10C the 4th one in that sequence being -14C. That exceeded February 1991 and that was an impressive cold spell - but the 2010 has to be so amazing how it commenced in the last 10 days of November.

I lost count of the number of days with a max below 0C - but it must have been at least 14 which is more than I experienced in the winter of 1979.

Well, my weather memories go right back to the mid 1970's, so I've experienced quite a few great cold and wintry spells so far.  I've picked out what I think are the three most impressive Wintry spells in my memory.

First, the very best one - December 1981.    I remember right at the start of that month, hearing a radio forecaster (possibly Philip Eden) saying that "the weather is likely to turn very much colder, and there will be snow in many places".  Indeed, that's what happened, and a prolonged severe cold and wintry spell set in from December 7th, lasting almost to the end of the month.  The temperature barely rose above freezing during this spell, with severe frosts on many nights. There was a lot of snowfall also during this spell, but would like to focus on one day in particular, which for me is the only true frontal blizzard I've ever experienced, Dec 13th, 1981.

The day started exceptionally cold, in fact I remember we had no water supply in the morning due to frozen pipes.  I remember that the sky was a uniform leaden grey all day, hardly changing.  The forecast was for a blizzard to reach us during the day, but it certainly kept us waiting, it was still dry at 4pm.  Soon after though, the first few flakes of dry powdery snow arrived, and then for the whole evening it was just a continuous blizzard with very fine powdery heavy snow that started to accumulate into deep drifts up to one foot deep, as the southeasterly wind was very strong by then. The temperature was well below freezing too. I also remember the night sky being of an unusually bright orange colour! 

Woke up the next day, and the snow had eased, but with about 8 inches of level snow, and drifts up to 2 feet deep. During the 14th, I remember we had frequent snow showers in a westerly wind, a rare phenomena here.  Then, contrary to forecasts, the snowstorm actually returned back from the north in the evening, and we had heavy snow through the whole evening of the 14th. Couldn't believe how lucky we were in that spell!  This brought the level depth of snow to close to a foot of snow by the 15th.

My second favourite cold/wintry spell is Nov/Dec 2010.  Here's a photo of the scene in Gainsborough on December 1st, 2010 after a 12 hour snowstorm delivered almost 40cm of snow here:

And my third favourite cold/wintry spell is January 1987.  It was similar to the Nov/Dec 2010 spell as it came from lake effect easterlies, but the snowfalls were spread out over several days rather than all in one go. The depth was very similar though, about 40cm at the deepest.

As well as the all time record the max of -12°C in Glasgow on one of the days during that period is quite remarkable too http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/j.1477-8696.1997.tb06294.x/asset/j.1477-8696.1997.tb06294.x.pdf;jsessionid=38AC919F5646B3BCD55E6E58CB154583.f02t01?v=1&t=i58d4p84&s=ae91e8d7b3ae2bfe98741496e7fca8e92683b95e

The coldest I've ever felt was back in the late 70s when erecting a milking parlour near Alnwick in Northumberland. I've no specific dates as then I never had any interest in keeping them. The cold there at that time was the worst I have encountered in my lifetime and the only time my eyebrows frosted up and the dewdrops on my nose froze, it was honestly too cold to work in. The snow that had fallen prior to us starting work up there was so hard you'd have had a job to crack it with a hammer, and the battery on our Land rover froze solid, touching any metal took your skin off your hands and that was if you could get you hand free. That was cold, Very cold and I wouldn't want to witness that again.

63 was very bad, so cold it killed thousands of birds where they perched but Alnwick even though I think only a short cold spell felt much colder. Maybe someone here has a record of that.

1978/79, 1981, 1984, 1995/96, 2009/10, 2010. 

Those years are the standout ones which brought disruptive and prolonged  wintry weather, any other analogue years were simply bobbins bar the odd cold spell/snap.

Down here it was the night of January 5/6 2010.

Doesn't get any better than this for the south! I measured 25cm of snow on the pavement outside my house. And then there were several days of clear blue sunny days afterwards. It's the only time I've seen snow pack down to white hardpack on the roads, rather than turning to slush. It was like living in the Alps!

Possibly Jan 1979? http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/1979_weather.htm

I was born in 1962 so the great winter of 1963 doesn`t register.

However id say the most memorable from a cold perspective with snow has to be 1978/79

we had heavy snow on new years eve 1978 and the big freeze with further snowfalls lasted

until end feb 1979.

For sheer cold without snow was late Jan/ Feb 1986 this cold spell saw winchills here of -20c

it was a month of howling easterlies and its the only time since `63 parts of Poole harbour froze

it was brutally cold and am surprised no one else has cited this one which inmo was the daddy of them all.

A mean temp of -1.1c says it all

December 2010 of course will always be remembered but for me even more memorable than that event was

March 2013 for the lateness of such cold weather and the fact it got colder and colder as the month wore on

and then dragged on into April.

For the record the last snow to fall here was April 7th 2013

Humm, just too young to remember '63. Just remember pretty impressive snowfalls in a Feb late 60's - lanes blocked by drifts.

The most memorable cold spell I remember is the cold, snowy spell culminating in the great blizzard of Feb 1978. Huge amounts of snow smothering everything and huge drifts (up here there was a lot of snow from the low pressure before the blizzard). We've had nothing (and I mean nothing) like it since. Hardly a snow drift even here up on the moor's edge since then.

And for sheer cold? Dec 2010. To see the river Teign frozen bank to bank, I doubt that has happened since '63, if not before. Extraordinary.

neil, me too. Born in 63  and my parents, both 89 still talk about the snow arriving on Boxing Day in London and still on the ground in March..In Jan 87 I was living in west London and the spell wasn't that great, snow wise and I remember travelling down to Tonbridge and being stunned by the quantity of snow and massive drifts....

Can I ask..back in Jan 87' how deep was the snow in coastal South Coast counties? I've never seen snow deeper than about 8 inches or so in West Sussex in the 13 years I've lived here....

Thanks Gavin - Glad I took them for memory.

Thanks Rob, not saying that's the year as I just can't remember, one other thing I do remember during that year, this was the second trip to Alnwick to finish off the building, the first trip was some months earlier and I remember seeing many high sided  lorries blown over along about a 20 mile stretch of the A1, driving home south bound they were blown to the left so possibly a severe westerly gale, that's all I can remember I'm afraid.

Yep, Dec/Jan 2010 for me, here in Sussex. We built an igloo in garden,that took almost 2 months to melt away! Slept in it once or twice, and my car is still nicknamed "Superjag" in the village for it's ability to get out of the village and into town for shopping..we did shopping for many people in that cold spell. Some kids started a giant snow ball that grew so big they could no longer roll it,and it blocked the road through the village-it must have been 8ft across! 

Ok.  In chronological order...

late December 1978 - early January 1979.

Powder snow.  Snow had been wet, soon sullied and fleeting.  This was fine, crystalline, drifting and smooth.  Ice formed on the insides of the single glazed windows.  The doors frozen shut as the snow hitting the door had melted and refrozen.  The road sign buried.  Minus 4 c or 25 Fahrenheit as it was known.  Accompanied by a 25 mph Northeasterly.  Awesome brutal memorable. Snow depth difficult to gauge but around 20cms

mid February 1979

heavy snow from troughs and showers on a gale force northeasterly.  Bitterly cold.  Deep snow at around 18cms. 

Early February 1983

the streamer to end all streamers delivered 45 yes forty five cms of snow IMBY by the afternoon of February 9th having started 36 hours earlier.  Places a little higher between Dover and Folkestone had 60 cms of snow.  The snow stayed on the ground and sublimated under cold high pressure only disappearing by 26th February.  The BIG DADDY locally and yet to be equalled.

january 1985

numerous falls of powder snow accompanied by 9 ice days from 5-20 January, school disrupted, large scale snowball fights, massive icicles and some incredible sled runs.  Awesome.  The sort of cold where your cheeks and chin freeze, a maximum of -5 Celsius on 2 days.  

February 1986.

the last ice month IMBY and a notable snowfall on 9 February of 10 inches or 25 cms which lasted til it was topped up by a blizzard on March 1st.  Under clear skies and calm air radiative cooling delivered reliable readings of -13c IMBY And down in the valley -16 c in Dover.  Incredible.

Nov/Dec 2010 has to be the daddy. I had 19 inches of snow on my decking, and I could only spot the toys further down the garden by the slight humps in the snow. It was like narnia, and so quiet, since edinburgh cc were completely asleep at the wheel and didnt get gritting organised so no traffic :-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11946220

Just after new year (so jan 2011) we went to keswick on a day outing from centre parcs and derwentwater was frozen. A beautiful sight, but eerier was the noise, the creaking and cracking of the ice as the water underneath was moving it.

March 2013 was also the only time I've seen proper drifting, driving along the a66 to keswick again. We thought it was smoke from an accident at first but it was loose snow blowing off the top of a drift across the road. The drift itself was like a frozen surf wave, it's tip bent over and pointing down.

For me it's all about drifting snow and anyone down the east coast of East anglia would know 87 will never be bettered. Unfortunately I have no pictures, but do have a couple of jan 85 in suffolk:

march 2013 was arguably the best for drifting snow round here since February 91, was precious little in between.

March 2013:

Just like jan 87 was a one off, I doubt I'll ever see a March winter like 2013 again.

After some consideration, my choice is the December 2010 spell. Well, to be more accurate, late-Nov & December.

I think because it's so fresh in the memory, and just pips December 1981

My memory begins with rising excitement in TWO, and me making a post halfway through a particular run to moan it looked like going T-U, then Retron slapping me down with an excited post to point out the fantastic WAA up the west of Greenland.

The cold duly arrived toward the end of November, with some respected TWO'ers suggesting it could well be a laster. This was just a year after the 2009 snow lying over Xmas (and the superb fall just into the new year).

By the final week of November, the news was full of wondrous sights of the NE getting serious snowfalls. We went to York on the last Sunday in November and got caught in a serious - and unforecasted - snowfall. The sights of York at dusk bathed thick in snow will stick with me forever - like a Dickensian Christmas Card.

The cold intensified, and the areas receiving snow expanded. We were forecast a couple of snow events, which didn't materialise. I was getting nervous. Surely we couldn't totally miss out (as we did in Jan 87).

Next opportunity came a week before Xmas. This never wavered, us being forecast 2-5cm. That'd do, because it wouldn't be going anywhere. It started snowing on the early evening of Friday 17th as I travelled home from work. The snow got heavier as I headed westwards - illuminated orange in the motorway lights - and was sticking well by the time I reached home. And it just got heavier, quickly passing the 5cm forecast. The four of us headed out for a walk in the snow, calling in on some friends for a drink. I think it stopped around 10pm, with the snow 15cm or so deep.

Xmas Eve came, and the snow hadn't melted one bit. We went out for a meal to a country pub toward Southport, and if anything the snow was a couple inches deeper there (very rare thing!). We were sat not far from an open fire, looking out over the snowy beer garden. Bliss.

The only pity is that the thaw came with a whimper. I'd have liked one last snowy hoorah.

The stats remain remarkable. The official Met Office site at Crosby, on the coast just north of Liverpool, recorded -17c as a min, but we dipped below -10c numerous times during the December. The cold had lasted relentlessly for 4-5 weeks. Some places in the NE at low altitude clocked over 50cm snow, with the vast majority of the UK receiving settling snow.

I had some casualties in the garden. Two mature eucalyptus trees, three phormiums, a Canarian palm and a windmill palm, and a shrub I could never remember the name for. The bottlebrush shrub I thought was dead resurrected itself the following summer.

After two consecutive Xmases with snow on the ground, I was hoping for a hat-trick in 2011. Although we did have a covering mid-December (and we went to the Xmas Fair at Delamere Forest - superb), it was gone 24 hours later.

Each year now, I hope for another 'December 2010' (although I'd settle for a December 2009 at a push )

Not so much about specific cold spells but more about memorable snow events from me. 

1. My first memory of 'deep snow' was the event during late December 1978. It was a Saturday night when the event took hold. It was the first time in my life as a child of 9 years old that I witnessed snow laying on the floor and moving on the ground...very weird. My memory then skipped to the next afternoon at dusk and going for a walk in alpine blue skies and snow up to my knees (probably 20cm).


2. 13th December 1981..very severe cold. My little brother was on a cross channel ferry in France with the cubs, an easterly gale developed with snow in the forecast. My mum was beside herself with worry thinking her 10 year old little boy would be marooned in France as a blizzard took hold. He got back in time that Sunday evening.


3. Feb 1983..perfectly described by Whether Idle..to add a musical angle to this I recorded the Top 40 on the Sunday night before it all kicked off..my musical memory of this was The Story of the Blues by a band called Wah !


4. Easter Sunday 1983..completely unexpected. There was about 8cm when I started my paper round but it soon became slushy and by 11am it had melted.


5. January and February 1985..numerous snow events. I enjoyed how messy it all became. Snow would fall, it would then partially melt, turn slushy, freeze again and then get coated by another snow event. It went on for about 4 or 5 weeks. Snow was still visible in deep drifts over the North Downs in late March.


6. Feb 1986.. a grey, very cold month with a 5cm fall of snow early in the month that never melted but became compacted and dirty looking.


7. January 1987..it grew very dark on the Sunday morning. 20cm was dumped in 8 hours from noon until 8pm on the 11th January. Thereafter little snow fell here, whereas north Kent and Essex were getting pasted.


8. February 1991..the second best event after 1983 here. 13 inches was laying on my merry Saturday night walk home on the 9th February after another heavy evening snowfall.


9. Feb 20/21st 1996...local forecast went for 2-5cm but we ended up getting a NE'ly convective snow machine here in SE Kent with 20cm level snow..drifts locally were 10 ft high..awesome experience.


10. Thundersnow..29th January 2004. 3.8c to -0.4c in 15 minutes. A gust of wind, a 2 minute spell of rain, followed by an instant blizzard..memorable.


11. December 3/4th 2010. It was -8c at 8pm with 20cm of powder snow on the ground. By 10am the next morning it had disappeared as a warm sector developed a strange SW'ly streamer that delivered 25mm rainfall in temps of 6c.


12. 20th January 2013.. A relaxed snow event that delivered a very pretty 13cm in 12 hours.