Snow in April is not at all unusual in our region, in fact there was
an average of 2 days of snow during April in the 30-year period from
1971-2000 in Coventry; we did have 6 days of April snow in 1998, and a
record number of 8 April snow days in both 1908 and 1917,

For April 2008, make that one snow day so far, with 7cm of lying snow
at 0900hr GMT on Sunday, this is the first April day with snow on the
ground at morning observation since 1994, and the deepest April snow
since 1981.

Steve Jackson
Bablake Weather Station
Coventry UK
www.bablakeweather.co.uk

On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 02:37:49 -0700 (PDT), Steve J
wrote:

Snow in April is not at all unusual in our region, in fact there was
an average of 2 days of snow during April in the 30-year period from
1971-2000 in Coventry; we did have 6 days of April snow in 1998, and a
record number of 8 April snow days in both 1908 and 1917,

For April 2008, make that one snow day so far, with 7cm of lying snow
at 0900hr GMT on Sunday, this is the first April day with snow on the
ground at morning observation since 1994, and the deepest April snow
since 1981.

This may well be a 40 year+ record for the Southampton-Fareham area.

I have the record of "Snow Days" copied from the "Southampton Data"
published on the Met Office website - now published at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/...ata/index.html but this
no longer includes "Snow Days" (which I take to mean 'days with snow
lying at 9 am'). However, I saved the entire data file a few years
ago, before the Met Office chopped out the snow days.

Snow Days was reported for Southampton between 1969 and 2000, when the
station closed. Like me, the Southampton site(s) are more or less at
sea level, my location is only two miles from Southampton Water and I
am seven miles from the Southampton site(s), in an urban/suburban
location. I think it is reasonable to assume that 'snow' conditions in
both places are similar.

No Snow Days were reported at Southampton for April in any year
between 1969 and 2000. None has occurred in April since 2000 at my
location until today. So today's Snow Day is probably the only one to
have occurred in April in the Southampton-Fareham area for at least 40
years. Photo taken at 8:30 am BST (there's still over 50% cover now,
at 11:20BST - 100% on grass):
http://www.daveludlow.com/weather/20...ow_fareham.jpg

--
Dave
Fareham West
Fareham