"Col" wrote in message
...

I was living in Swansea at the time and the sight of chunks of ice
on the beach at a location so far to the SW was incrediable..
I remember the constant and bitter east wind raising clouds of
dust, it was so dry. As far as I can remember no snow apart from
a few flurries.
The cold spell of Feb '86 fitted almost exactly into the month of
February so statistically at least it was more impressive than other
comparable spells that straddled 2 months.
One reason why it may have been 'forgotten' by some is that the
east wind was persistent and fairly strong so that although average
temperatures were very low there were few exceptionally low minima.
Very possibly lack of snow cover could have contributed as well.

There was one snowfall, overnight 5th/6th I think, which affected a
fairly broad band from East Anglia, the northern Home Counties,
the middle Thames Valley, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. In Luton
we had something like 8cm which lasted until March 4. The only other
snowfall during the spell was on March 1.

Philip Eden
(Nicky Campbell does