We were there in August 2004 and it was like being in Blighty - almost every day was grey, high-60's f. Little/no rain, mind.

Acclimatisation was easy

Calgary is Canada's sunniest city.. so you probably just got unlucky. They get over 2000  hours in an average year.

From a freak event (stretching in a narrow line from Oxford-Bournemouth), early Feb last year.

More than an inch first thing, but at least 50% cover didn't even last through the afternoon - being so localised there was not enough surface cooling in the surrounding region to keep the dew points from rising too high. It was the fastest pre-spring melt that I can ever recall seeing.

The last full day of lying snow was in mid-Jan 2013, in fact that survived several days, though it wasn't very deep at just a few cm and rather slushy after that first day of actually very dry snow (powder snow).

Have to go back to Dec 2010 for the last time I had an inch of snow on the ground for a whole day. Even then my peak depth was short of what most of Southern England had, even some parts nearer to the coast than me.

Yeah, decent snow depths is a sore subject for me!

Sunday 17th January, it snowed for a couple of hours, quite heavily at times, and left 1cm or so on car roofs and other raised surfaces. Never more than a dusting of slushy stuff on the grass though.

Ditto here too! The thin covering a year ago was gone by 10.30am.

Same here re Jan `13 and have to go back to the night of Dec 1st 2010 when there was an old fashioned dump of snow.I remember going to work at 5.30 am after brushing a ton of snow off the car and the errie feeling with everything white,the roads were covered 3 to 4 ins deep.

The most incredible snow event,albeit an hour long shower occurred April 7th 2013 right at the back end of that epic freeze that year.I didn`t settle but it was memorable for the date it happened.

Last time there was snow lying was on 9th January. Last time there was a proper decent amount i.e. more than 10cm was 14th March 2013. Even that was gone within 24 hours to be followed by a grey, wet weekend as the wind switched from north to east. Precisely the reason why I detested that month.

That was the last time there was even more than 6cm. Just ridiculous. Even inland areas that average 40-60 days are hardly getting any snow.

During 87/88 to 89/90 there was 7cm (on 1st March 1988) so it's worse than that and that was the previous worst run of three successive winters. However the main thing that makes the current run far worse is the amount of wind and rain. Absolutely horrific and a total contrast to the mild, dry winters of the late 80s and 90s.

January 16th, 6cm. This was taken on the morning of the 17th.

Yes, almost 3 years (March) since we have had anything which would be classified as more than a dusting.

18/1/13 - enough to build snowmen, though had to go up to the Downs to get any real depth - and 11/3/13 - just a slushy covering

Before that Dec 2010 had a decent fall, but it thawed after 4 days

The recent fall in the SE was on a Saturday. I had to travel across to Maidstone on the Monday and there were small patches left in the lee of woods east of the M23

How many dustings have you had though?

hmm well snow  wasn't that far from you Martin...as i said worth checking ....  https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=richmond+surry+snow+2016&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=kX2yVvzdMsKsPIv2n-AK#q=richmond+surrey+snow+2016

Alan

Last time we had a cm of snow on the ground was December 2010. A few trace snowfalls since then but not enough to turn the ground white, let alone measure. That said, the lack of snow in successive winters is probably not that unusual for my location.

As Michael has said, up here in NE Scotland the last few winters have been notable for the absence of the old reliable snow machine - an Arctic N-ly flow bringing widespread snow showers even to lower ground. The table below summarises the number of days each month from Jan 1979 to Dec 2015 with the 850mb wind from a N-ly quadrant (330 degrees through 360 to 030 degrees), and 850 temp -8 or less. This is an almost guaranteed measure of snow and is probably too conservative, but it illustrates the point well. The right hand columns in the table are the annual total and 5-year running average, and the recent slump shows up nicely.

As can be seen there have been few occasions since 2010 with wind direction and temperature conducive for snow showers. March 2013 does not show up well as much of the flow was from the east.

The runs of westerly winters in the late 80s / early 90s were also marked by low numbers of Arctic flows, but equally remarkable has been the consistenly high number of occasions from 1995 to 2010, during which only isolated winters (1997, 2000, 2002 and 2009) were much below the average.

We've had 5 minor events, late November, three consecutive days during the cold spell last month and Tuesday morning.

Nothing that would have even registered or been remembered in the eighties though, those were the days my friend 

These are all the days since March 2013 that I have recorded > 50% snow lying at 9am

19/11/13 <1cm

19/01/15 1cm

20/01/15 2cm

21/01/15 2cm

22/01/15 1cm

23/01/15 1cm

01/02/15 1cm

02/02/15 4cm

03/02/15 3cm

04/02/15 6cm

05/02/15 5cm

06/02/15 2cm

27/04/15 1cm

21/11/15 <1cm

22/11/15 5cm

23/11/15 1cm

30/11/15 1cm

01/12/15 1cm

08/01/16 5cm

09/01/16 4cm

Most of these were the peak depths and the snow failed to last a full day and I am higher altitude and further from the sea so usually get more snow than the rest of the city.

The April 2015 event saw around 6cm on the evening of the 26th but it had melted to just 1cm by 10am the next morning and gone completely by lunchtime. That was the single biggest fall in almost 3 years showing just how bad things have got.

Incredible Stats Richard from what should be the snowiest city in Britain.

If the ecm was to be believed we would have been buried on many occasions in the last few years.  

Thats amazing for what is normally the snowiest part of the Country, yet I have been to Perth 3 times in the last 13 months and each time the town had a snow cover! The last visit was just two weeks ago when I went to Aberdeen but there was no snow from Dundee northwards, remarkable.

Its no wonder Richard moans so much.

Andy 

And yet Richard appears to have had 19 days with snowcover (albeit not 2 foot of powder!) in the past 12 months alone, with a fair smattering of days with a couple if inches (so full cover)....  Something doesn't add up here?!?

Richard - Given the number of snow days you actually seem to have experienced, I dread to think how grumpy Richard would be if you lived in Evesham or Portsmouth or some other English snow desert....

PS my last day was Saturday 16th January 2016.... 6cm, but it was a one day affair with only scant patches left 24 hours later... Had a good morning in the snow though!

Edit: Apologies - I missed this sentence: "I am higher altitude and further from the sea so usually get more snow than the rest of the city".  That might explain things given we've had so many marginal situations.