According to reports at the time, there were 3ft snow drifts in Manchester city centre on the 12th of February 1900. This snowfall was just one of a number that struck the UK during the first half of February 1900, in one of the snowiest spells to hit the UK. The wintry spell began on the 28th January and there were frequent spells of snow right up to the 15th of February. The biggest snowfall came on the 10th/11th, when a low tracked across central parts of the UK bringing heavy snowfalls. Here's the synoptic maps for the snowstorm taken from an old Weather magazine.

Parts of Manchester recorded a foot of snow and across many parts of the UK there was generally between a foot and two feet of snow.

28th January-15th February CET: 0.1

Here is further info on this month.

Snow depths
February 2nd
Camden Square: 5.5"
Enfield: 7"
Weybridge: 7"
Burgess Hill: 3"
Liphook: 8"
Hartney Wintney: 12.5"
St Albans: 9"
Slough: 6.5"
Kempton Park: 6"
West Surrey: 9"
Northampton: 12"
Swindon: 12"

8th Feburary
North Wales: 7"
Dumfriesshire: 9"
Grantown: 12"

9th February
Barrow-in-Furness: 12"
Workington: Thunder and lightning, 6ft drifts
Kendal: 12"
Valencia: 14"

10th February
Manchester: 24hrs of snow, 3ft drifts in city streets
Rochdale: 8.5"
Blackburn: 8"
Huddersfield: 12"
Brighouse: 18"
Halifax: 12"
Bradford: 8"
Keighley: 12"
Harrogate: 12"
Scarborough: 12"
Northallerton and Wensleydale: 18"
Duns: 18"
11th February
Knaresborough: 12"
Sunderland: 12"

13th February
Finchley: 5.5"
North Oxfordshire: 15"
Oxford: 9"
Camborne: 5"
North Cornwall: 10"
Weston-Super-Mare: 9"
Bath: 12"
Clifton: 9"
Bishopton: 8"
Forest of Dean: 18"
Gloucester: 12"
Evesham: 9"
Montmouthshire: 8"
Blaenavon: 10"
Aberdare: 12"

14th February
Ross-on-Wye: 8.5"
Bournemouth:1"
Woodchester: 18"
Nottingham: 5"

15th February
South Nottinghamshire: 9"
Sheffield: 16"

Here is from the Times of 12th February 1900 of the snowstorm

Looks like, over the course of a few days, it was a real country-wide snow event. I know the pressure maps from the time are not as accurate away from land, but the synoptics seem weird.

Would love to see something like that again, though.

(PS - I understand there was a really snowy event in the early/mid-50's for NW England; have you ever done one of your features on this?)

Considering the depth of snow 3ft drifts seem rather small!
I would think 1979 must have seen as much if not more. 

If it's windy you can soon have 3ft drifts from a couple of inches when large areas are swept almost bare. 

I am very sceptical of those analysis charts. The first one suggests a southwesterly flow and the second a northwesterly. Neither of those would give 12.5" of snow to Hartley Wintney, just down the road from here!

WZ has a more plausible set-up with a 2010-esque northeasterly:

I bet it was rain down here.

Oh happy days of a distant and disappeared past. Now we are just deluged by rain and other unwelcome floods.

To be fair, the snow probably wasn't welcomed at the time.

And lowland areas not far from Manchester saw comparable snowfalls (well, 7"-8" level snow) in both Jan 10 & Dec 10

January 5th 2010.

That was epic. In Manchester too! 

Great write up Kevin. Can't imagine 3 foot drifts in Manc city centre. Must be pretty rare. 

Manchester evening news

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/snow-nostalgia-archive-pictures-manchester-8471280

Someone should tell them that their first photo is of Aberdeen. 

Can't be. I thought Aberdeen only got 'vile, disgusting rain with 10c temps'

apart from a couple from 1900, the only pics showing any seriously decent lying snow are taken in Saddleworth - which is cheating, as it's well out of the city and over 500ft asl

MEN scraping the barrel!

grumpy 😉!

I know what you mean, and the selection does include some genuinely pathetic falls of snow in Chorlton and Piccadilly Gardens. :D

however - there's a photo of extremely deep snow on Cheetham Hill Road, and Boggart Hole Clough which is very much in the city. 

Manchester is a funny place for snow. We rarely have completely snowless winters, and there certainly are occasions when we fair better than other parts of the NW.

I've lived here all my life (bar 5 years in Edinburgh), and it's incredibly frustrating how places so so close (e.g. Buxton, Glossop) can do so so well, when we nearly always fair less so. The reason of course being obvious. 

The only time I can recall snow being bad enough here for school closures is Jan 2010 (7 inches or so). Snow isn't especially rare, but BAD snow certainly is.