Remember this. Cold air pushing down from the NE, Atlantic fronts pushing up from the SW, lead to heavy disruptive snowfalls.

What I remember that Friday of the 8th February 1985 was sleet and wet snow falling at lunch time and during the afternoon, the snow stuck and soon there was a covering. Home time from school was a short wintry walk home, it was bitter in that wind. I remember snow whipping off a neighbour's car. 

Hard to to believe this was 30 years ago.

 

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Yes, time does go quickly.

I remember that time very well. I was living near Lincoln. It was dull and bitterly cold with strong, penetrating east winds (max temperature -1 C on 9, 10, 11 Feb). We had snow showers, scattered at first but became frequent on 10th. It remained very cold, but became dry with brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies, with lighter winds, for next 3 days.

 

Yes that Saturday I got studded playing rugby at school.  Fortunately my legs were that cold I couldn't really feel it.

This sticks in my memory very well. From the age of 10 I somehow always had an idea of what was happening weatherwise, especially in winter if a cold or snowy spell was looming. This one completely caught me out. I wonder if most of southern UK got caught out by this ? because it became a big topic of conversation that weekend.

I was a 15 at the time and in the Sea Cadets. We had won the SE regional 5 a side football competition and were Portsmouth bound in a minibus headed for the finals.

We left Folkestone at 5pm in cloudy and dry and calm conditions, as we drove along the south coast the rain started falling, by 8pm the rain was heavy, it was soon after this (probably somewhere near Arundel I noticed large blobs of sleet appearing. 

We arrived at Portsmouth around 10pm and headed for our Dorms..before lights out I observed snow was now falling 

The next morning we awoke to a 3cm covering of snow, the cloud cleared and the day became icy cold with a cutting easterly wind. Sunday was the same too..bitterly cold and windy.

The journey home back to Folkestone on Sunday was a slidy nightmare, a 9 hour journey..the landscape from Hampshire to Kent was the same 3cm cover of snow completely frozen. The roads were ice, suggesting that no salt was placed on them.

Was this one of those rare events whereby a forecasted warm front with milder weather actually stalled, backtracked and brought in a a frigid easterly instead ? 

 

 

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Amazing that does - makes me feel old. I was at college in Ormskirk - That event commenced a long cold spell.

I remember in lectures seeing rain - then turn to sleet and then snow and then settle. It was a real classic.

 

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I had just joined the RAF and wad loading transport aircraft in the freezing cold, and my feet were frozen!😗❄️

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I was working in south Birmingham at the time, rain turned to snow about 10am and by lunchtime 5cms had fallen, we were sent home early due to the worsening conditions and by nightfall a blizzard was raging with drifting snow.

On Saturday morning I measured 16cms of snow and the forecasted thaw never arrived as fronts were pushed back west, however, the rest of the cold spell was dry with no further snow.

Andy

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There had been a spring like spell in late January and early February following an earlier severe and snowy period. However temperatures had slowly fallen through the latter half of the week from highs of around 12C or so on Monday and Tuesday with the wind backing through South towards East. The Friday in Bristol was damp and cold with temps falling to just above freezing by evening which time a light rain began to fall. I was working nights and soon after arriving at work at 9.00PM could hear snow grains starting to fall amongst the rain outside, the sort that makes that pinging sound on hard surfaces and foliage. By 10.00PM it was snowing and it was starting to settle on the wet ground. My workplace had large windows and I could watch the snow build inch by inch as it was driven by a strong east wind. My take on the relevant forecast was that the cold air was predicted to win out very easily and this would not produce much energy. The warm front was still pushing hard as the cold air undercut, producing somewhat of a stalemate until the Saturday morning and resulting in12cm of snow which was far more than expected. With the cold air ultimately winning the snow lay right through until around the 20th of the month.

I dont really remember this one, though it seemed to snow very often in those days! It was almost normal

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Same here. I've tried to cast my mind back to recall this specific one. I'd have been just 13, therefore 2nd year high school. Like you, I can remember it snowing often back then and I think snowfall memories just merge.

 

Edit: I do recall a time at school, probably that winter, when about 50 of us were out near the front of the school, using passing lorries & busses as snowball target practice. The headmaster, who was real old school ('scuse the pun) and would wear the black cap & gown, came storming out.

Everyone turned, startled for a moment, then let fly a volley of snowballs at him as we all laughed. Enraged, he began to run toward us all. We scarpered. I slipped, flat on my arse. He was quick for a guy approaching retirement, I'll give him that, and before I could make good my escape, he'd made it to only about 20 yards away. "YOU BOY!!!! STOP RIGHT THERE!!!" he boomed. I figured he was close enough to identify me (and it's not like I'd been a total stranger to either the head's or one of the deputy heads' offices) so stayed put. Perhaps he was out of breath, but he let me off with a lecture.

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If I remember correctly this brought blizzards from the NE to my area with drifts of 4 to 5 feet, the snow at my altitude lasted about a week or more

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1985/Rrea00119850502.gif

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4 to 5 feet of snow- in early May?

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It's Sheffield - as we've recently seen, it's a different world there when it comes to snow

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It could be my memory , but you're right its a different world up here at times, we've still got plenty of lying snow from nearly 2 weeks ago,

I think there's plenty of winter left to come

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Somewhere I've got a pic of me as a young whipper-snapper (would have 8 at the time) with snow nearly up to my waist from this spell.

I think the Met Office forecast mostly rain from this one, but the cold air "won" the battle.

Didn't Phillip Eden have a story where he was doing a radio forecast and went for heavy snow (against MetO guidance?) because the low level air on the continent was so cold and he just couldn't see it being rain and not snow?

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When would that have been Gav? About 1960?

 

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I can remember how the snowy theme of that winter came in two parts, one in mid-January then a sudden "warm-up" in the first week of February before wintry weather returned "with a vengeance" later on in that month. 

However, we paid the price for that snowy winter with a pi55 poor Summer where Autumn turned out to be more summer-like!

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Bring back 62/63.......

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