Tudor Hughes wrote:
On Aug 27, 6:50 pm, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Tudor Hughes wrote:
On Aug 27, 1:31 pm, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Mine a-
1962/63 winter
1987 "Great Storm"
1976 Hot long summer.
Although these are obvious for my region I wondered what other regional
perceptions would be.
The only others really are a couple of notable blizzards, the record
minimum low temps of 1982, the high max of Aug 2003 close to me and a
T/S in the fifties that flooded our road so deep that people were
canoeing along it!
Dave, S.Essex
Colossal thunderstorm starting at 7 pm Friday 5 Sept 1958
with lightning of a frequency and type (rocket lightning) that I have
not seen since. About 60 mm rain in less than an hour. This was the
continuation of the Horsham Hailstorm. Spoilt for life at the age of
15.
London smog, Sat 6 Dec 1952. So dirty that indoors, in a
hall in central London it looked as if someone had set fire to all the
waste paper bins. Minimum visibility (outside) was about 10 yards,
which is less than it sounds. Much brake-stamping as the bus inched
its way through Hyde Park Corner. No fog above 350 ft.
Cold day, 12 Jan 1987. ( I had the day off work to take my Mum
to hospital for a "1500-mile service" on her new hip.) I could
scarcely believe it as the thermometer failed to get above -9.2°C
despite sunshine. A temperature of about -7°C in sunny central
Croydon at about 2 pm felt positively eerie. In the next 48 hours the
snow depth (at home) increased from about 8 cm to 39 cm, the deepest
level depth I have seen.
Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey
----------------
I don't know how I could've forgotten to mention the smog Tudor! When
dense fog meant dense fog. I remember struggling to find my own home (on
foot)from just a couple of hundreds of metres away.
Also did that 1958 storm affect Essex? Perhaps that is the one I
referred to?
Dave- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The storm certainly affected Essex, at least the
southern parts. Totals of over 3 inches (76 mm) occurred in a number
of places, probably starting about 8 pm. The most intense rainfall
seems to have been at Swanley, Kent, where 2.50" (63 mm) fell in 20
minutes. The comedian Mark Steele, who comes from that place, would
say "serve it right" though I think he'd yet to be born.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.
----------------
I think that could well of been it Tudor. I was living in a place called
South Ockendon which is part of Thurrock, only 15 miles or so from Swanley.
Thanks, Dave

At Rushden, Northants:
1946-7 winter: At the age of just over two-and-a-half, seeing dad throw a
shoe on the fire as we were running out of coal.

1950?: Walking home from school at the age of about five or six through
fog which was so thick that not only couldn't I see across the road, when
I reached the middle I still couldn't see the kerb ahead of me and,
obviously, the one behind me had also vanished.

1955-6 winter?: From the homeward-bound school bus, saw workmen with
pickaxes breaking up the ice on the road.

1956? summer: Saw a strong-looking tornado a few miles away, just over
the border in N Bedfordshire. Nothing reported in local press.

1959 summer: Long, hot and dry. Lasting, as I recall, from May through
September. No rugger allowed after the summer holiday as the grass hadn't
grown and the pitches were rock-hard. Also saw a UFO drifting slowly
across the sky one lunchtime when we were on the school playing-field.
Turned out to be a weather balloon.

1961-2 winter: Friday 30th Dec, mod-heavy snow. Sat, all snow gone and
raining. Freezing rain about 4pm. Sun am, mod-heavy snow again. All with
a NE wind. On another occasion in that winter, fine snow found its way
through gaps in my bedroom windows and a light dusting settled on window
ledge. Was there for three days.

1962-3 winter: Just before Christmas, from a thick fog, flakes of snow
began to fall and the fog broke to reveal a clear, blue sky. The flakes
were composed of clusters of ice needles. Whilst I was at RAF Wyton
during the freeze, Dad saw my bedroom thermometer one morning registering
-10C.

1964(?) August: At RAE Thurleigh, when England was covered by the flabby
remains of a tropical storm, saw several funnel clouds - a maximum of
five in the sky at any one time.

Suffolk:
1975, 2nd June: During late morning was driving through Suffolk and
seeing snow-covered roofs and lawns still half-covered in snow. Cloud was
breaking so it had been melting for a while. Before that, radio had been
warning drivers of blizzards and to drive with headlights on.

1975-6 drought: Rest of the 1975 summer, long, dry and hot though
tempered by arrival of sea breeze in early afternoons. Dry weather
persisted through the winter and large cracks were still showing in my
lawn shortly after Christmas. 1976 summer also hot and dry but very
unpleasant much of the time as there were rarely any sea breezes.

Bracknell:
1987 Oct: One Monday evening in the pub, someone told me he was going to
watch the golf at Wentworth on the Friday. Told him it would be awful,
storm-force winds etc. Lucky for me I didn't see him again that week or
I'd have backtracked on it as the computer had been doing.

1990, Jan 25: Was in the Royal Oak at lunchtime watching a parked car
edge slowly away from the pub apparently into the wind. Told the barmaid
about it seeing as it was her car.



--
Graham Davis, Bracknell
Whilst it's true that money can't buy you happiness, at least you can
be miserable in comfort.
Newsreader for Windows, Mac, Unix family: http://pan.rebelbase.com/

On Aug 27, 3:30*pm, Nick wrote:
On Aug 27, 1:31*pm, Dave Cornwell wrote:

Mine a-

1962/63 winter
1987 "Great Storm"
1976 Hot long summer.

Although these are obvious for my region I wondered what other regional
perceptions would be.

The only others really are a couple of notable blizzards, the record
minimum low temps of 1982, the high max of Aug 2003 close to me *and a
T/S in the fifties that flooded our road so deep that people were
canoeing along it!

Dave, S.Essex

Well technically the summer of 1976 was in my lifetime but I have no
memories of it at all - the only vaguely-connected memory I do have is
recognising that summer 1978 - the first summer I have any form of
clear memory of - was bad, so I must have had some sort of point of
reference. Winter 1978/79 was probably the most exceptional thing to
have happened from 1978 onwards in my lifetime, but memories are still
a bit shaky.

As for events I have a clear memory of, for winter I would have to say
January 1985, February 1986 and January 1987, and summer, 1983, 1989
and 1995. Though at the time, good summers were more frequent so they
didn't seem unusual. And for big thunderstorms, the summer of 1994.

Nick

Sorry to follow up but I forgot the obvious one, the 1987 storm.
Probably the most significant event from an impact point of view, with
roads impassable and electricity off for several days. And my earliest
memory of a hot spell and thundery breakdown - late May/early June
1978. After several hot days it seemed to go very dark earlier than it
should do on May 31st, I went to bed and awoke an hour or so later to
an active thunderstorm. Further storms (more of the shower type) on
June 1st, and what I can now verify was a thundery cold front on June
4th. ISTR the rest of the summer being pretty poor, again later
verified. Does anyone else remember that particular hot spell?

Nick

"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
Mine a-

1962/63 winter
1987 "Great Storm"
1976 Hot long summer.


Like some others, I've moved around a bit but these are my main memories:

First one is the 1962/63 winter in NE England (County Durham)
After an early week long snow incident in mid Nov '62, a few cold frosty
days over Christmas were followed on Boxing Day by the first proper snow.
Initially only a fairly thin wet cover but enough to try out one of my
Christmas toys of a sledge. The next day a much better snowfall, then over
the next 3 months with various snow 'topups', it got more use by me than all
following winters put together until final disposing in 2003 although I
think my younger brothers got a fair amount of use from it in 1979.

Later 1960's years in the E Midlands (Leicestershire) produced winters with
varying degrees of snow (1965-66 being probably the best) but the next major
one after above was:

Friday Feb 7 1969. After an afternoon of heavy snow and an, in those days
rare, early school closure, about 8" was followed by a cold, clear evening
and some great sledging conditions, repeated over the weekend days. The Feb
7th snowfall was not to be beaten in depth until 1979.

No major Summer memories of that decade.

1970. The next one, by now in Macclesfield, Cheshire, is a short snowy spell
over Christmas 1970 (Christmas Day was a Friday), not particularly
disruptive although my Auntie & Cousin had some difficulties in getting to
my Mum & Dads house for Christmas. My first white Christmas memory.

1975 & 1976 Summers, still in Macclesfield. The long drawn out hot spells,
particularly in 1976 which unusually, I have memories of the hot weather
being accompanied by a fairly strong NE wind on many days which tempered the
heat but made the drought worse. The heat, but not drought, ended abruptly
on the late Aug Bank Holiday Monday. There were some thunderstorms but the
main rain was still a couple of weeks away, beginning mid Sept.

The following winter 1976/77 had a long cold spell in December with much
rime followed by the first serious disruptive snowfall (Jan 1977) since
those of 1969 above.

1978/79 winter produced the first long cold spell since 1963. On Jan 1/2,
snow fell with an intensity that produced my worst locally observed
disruption since 1969 and a level dept hof 1ft (30cm), the first time I'd
seen a higher depth since Feb 1969. This was followed by a winter in the
Manchester/Macclesfield area that produced more snow & frost by the end of
March than the rest of that decade put together.

1981/82, by now in Southampton. Jan 8/9 '82 produced a long 'blizzard' that
produced similar depths to those of 1979 but nothing like that recorded in
some stations to the NW in the W Midlands/S Wales region. Dec 1981 was a
white Christmas back in the 'family' home area of Macclesfield.

Both 1983 & 1984 produced long hot summers in the Southampton area.

Jan 1987 produced the same cold mentioned by others. A max on Mon 12th
of -7C was accompanied by frost on the inside of the utility room door! The
12/13th gave about 30cm of snow but after that, a slow thaw reduced the snow
to nothing after about a week and the winter was otherwise uneventful.

Winter 1988/89. After a short cold spell in mid November, was the mildest,
snow free one remembered.

Summer 1989 a long, reasonably hot summer during which I moved to Central
Scotland. The summer there ended early Aug, just after I got there, but
continued further south until late Sept.

Summer 1995 was long, hot & dry in Scotland. Even June was good there
compared to further south. This was followed by a mild autumn, only to be
followed by an abrupt sudden change to winter in Dec 1995.

Dec 1995/Feb 1996. An extremely cold month with snow and cold over
Christmas. Glasgow Airport recorded -19C mins on 2 days with a neighbour
claimimg their car thermometer had got to -23C. The rest of the winter had
snowy spells especially mid Feb which produced probably the worst 'blizzard'
I have known with 10ft drifts. The M74 was closed for a while at this time.
However, it was short lived.

From there I went to Rugby in 1998, then to Malvern in 2002 with no major
weather events in that time in my areas.

Summer 2003. The next long hot one. We had the heat & drought but not the
records of further south.

Summer 2006. A hot dry June & July that was replaced by a much more normal
August.

2007. Feb produced a couple of days of heavy, disruptive snowfall on 8th/9th
in an otherwise uneventful winter. By April 2007, spring was more like early
summer but by July, the rain was notable, producing the floods that are well
documented. July 20/21st was the wettest period.

2009/2010 produced a snowy but not notably cold winter with disruptive snow
in both Jan & Feb.

Dec 2010 produced a snowy, cold month with the cold being second only to
that of 1995/96 above in Scotland. My own weather station recorded a winter
min of -14 early on 27th. Many sub tropical plants in the area were killed.

However, the main weather memory of all for me has to be Sunday 5th June
1983 in Eastleigh, just north of Southampton. After a 'perfect' early summer
day on 4th, that evening had thunderstorms rumbing away to the SE over the
Portsmouth/Solent area. These went on into the night but by the morning of
the 5th had died out and the early day was reasonable but with strange cloud
formations and many different wind directions at different heights from NE
at the surface to SE, then S then SW at various layers above. By 12:00, the
first of 6 severe thunderstorms had begun and these continued until 20:00
hrs with distinct breaks between each one but never out of audible range of
the one just gone or the next one coming. Had this been at night rather than
in the day, it would have been even more impressive & memorable. They were,
by far, the most severe storms Ihave witnessed, especially the first one
between 12:00 & 13:00 hrs where Radio 1 on AM was virtually inaudible for a
while due to the frequency of lighning discharges.

These storms of 5th marked the transition between a cold, wet spring and the
beginning of the hot 1983 summer referred to above, although it wasn't until
early July that the really hot weather began.

The event was discussed in Weather Magazine a year or so later in terms of
what the causes were.

Wetterzentralle archive shows the surface and 850 hPa conditions but if
anyone has 'real' weathermap of that day for 12:00, 18:00 & 00:00 on 6th,
I'd appreciate links or refs.

Thanks

--
Pete

Please take my dog out twice to e-mail

---------------------------------------------------------------
The views expressed above are entirely those of the writer and
do not represent the views, policy or understanding of any
other person or official body.
---------------------------------------------------------------

In article ,
John Hall writes:
In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:
Mine a-

1962/63 winter
1987 "Great Storm"
1976 Hot long summer.

Although these are obvious for my region I wondered what other
regional perceptions would be.

Mine here in Surrey would be the same, with these additions:

The extended summer of 1959, when to me as a child it seemed as though
we had unbroken sun and warmth from early May to early October.
The downpour and flooding of September, 1968.
The remarkable spell of extreme cold and the heavy snowfall in January,
1987.
The blistering heat of 10th August, 2003, when I felt quite unwell
though my aged parents seemed to cope just fine.

I've remembered a couple mo

The White Christmas of 1970. This is the only time I can recall snow
falling in measurable amounts on Christmas Day itself. There was further
snow on Boxing Day and on the 27th.

The heavy rain and flooding in autumn 2000. There was one day - I can't
recall if it was in October or November - when all the roads out of the
village where I live were blocked by floodwater and I couldn't get to
work. This was only the third - and the last - time that the weather
prevented me from getting to work, in a career that began in October,
1968. The other two were the 1987 "Great Storm", when all the roads were
blocked by fallen trees, and the January snow earlier the same year.
(When my bus into Guildford ran as normal, but when I got to the railway
station there was a member of staff outside who said: "There are no
trains. We don't know when there will be any trains. We advise you to go
home.")
--
John Hall
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick
themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
Winston S Churchill (1874-1965)

Summer 1983: After a cold(ish) spring came my first really warm summer.
(I was only 4 in 1976 and have very few memories of that one).

Jan 1987: the village getting cut off by huge snow-drifts. The size of
which I had not seen before.

Summer 1989: Warm, sunny, beautiful.

25th Jan 1990: The Burn's Day storm. Trees down everywhere blocking roads.

Summer 1990: After a cool start, it turned hot and I headed for Sennen
and spent July and August surfing/swimming and generally having one of
the best summers/times of my life.

7th - 8th December 1990 (Worcester): Heavy wet snow with blizzards
brought down trees, pylons and telephone lines. We had no power for
several days.

Summer 1995: A fantastic summer. I graduated from Uni that year and then
we headed to the coast in July. The heath and crop fires, and the M5
being closed because of thick smoke.

2nd - 5th July 1999 (Birmingham): Massive thunderstorms, widespread
flooding and seeing my first tornado.

August 1997 (London): Hot! Spending the evenings swimming in the outdoor
pool at Trent Park, Cockfosters, or sleeping out on the lawn at night
because it was just too hot to be indoors.

11 August 1999 (Cornwall): The total solar eclipse, OT but just had to
mention this one.

June & July 2006: The best two summer months I can remember, hot, hot
and damn hot. And then it all went cool and wet in August.
____________________________
Nick G
Otter Valley, Devon
83 m amsl
http://www.ottervalley.co.uk

On Aug 29, 10:56*am, John Hall wrote:
In article ,
*John Hall writes:





In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:
Mine a-

1962/63 winter
1987 "Great Storm"
1976 Hot long summer.

Although these are obvious for my region I wondered what other
regional perceptions would be.

Mine here in Surrey would be the same, with these additions:

The extended summer of 1959, when to me as a child it seemed as though
we had unbroken sun and warmth from early May to early October.
The downpour and flooding of September, 1968.
The remarkable spell of extreme cold and the heavy snowfall in January,
1987.
The blistering heat of 10th August, 2003, when I felt quite unwell
though my aged parents seemed to cope just fine.

I've remembered a couple mo

The White Christmas of 1970. This is the only time I can recall snow
falling in measurable amounts on Christmas Day itself. There was further
snow on Boxing Day and on the 27th.

The heavy rain and flooding in autumn 2000. There was one day - I can't
recall if it was in October or November - when all the roads out of the
village where I live were blocked by floodwater and I couldn't get to
work. This was only the third - and the last - time that the weather
prevented me from getting to work, in a career that began in October,
1968. The other two were the 1987 "Great Storm", when all the roads were
blocked by fallen trees, and the January snow earlier the same year.
(When my bus into Guildford ran as normal, but when I got to the railway
station there was a member of staff outside who said: "There are no
trains. We don't know when there will be any trains. We advise you to go
home.")
--
John Hall
* * * * * * "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick
* * * * * * *themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Winston S Churchill (1874-1965)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That white Christmas of 1970 has some dear memories, we always moved
to the front room for Christmas and as my Hi Fi was there I moved that
into the only other warm room in the house-the kitchen.


There, as the afternoon light started to fade with snow falling all
day I set up the system Wharfedale Dovedale speakers, a Trio 2002 amp
and a Garrard sp25MkII turntable with the obligatory Shure
cartridge and there in the semi darkness watching the snow fall in a
rear garden with already some 9 inches, through the kitchen window, I
played John Lennon's first Album which had just been released.
Fantastic memories it didn't get much better than that. My family were
all safe and sound, it was Christmas, it was snowing and I was
listening to John Lennon. magical.

Mine have to be:

45cms of snow 5th/6th February 1968, this place came to a complete
standstill!

Very severe thunderstorm 1st July 1968, early sunshine at 09.00 turned into
complete darkness by 09.15

Heavy snowfall Christmas eve/Christmas day 1968

Blizzards with deep drifts on 8/1/68, 4/3/70 and 13/1/77

Snowy winters of 1968, 1969 & 1970

Stunning hot summers of 1975 and 1976

Very cold and very snowy winter of 1979, snow lying days occurred in all
months from November 78 to May 79.

Cold winters of the 80s

37.5 of snow on 8th December 1990

Very warm summers of the 90s

Severe thunderstorm with large hailstones 1st July 2000

Thundery spring/summers of 1999 and 2000

Hot summers of 2003 and 2006


Graham

Weston Coyney weather station (North Staffs) 220 metres asl