In article ,
Bob Martin writes:
in 45440 20090202 143331 Richard Dixon wrote:

Get in contact with the BBC Weather guys - they've got 30cm as the highest
so far !

On the MetO site, Peter's 31cm is now in pole position.


It's pretty stunning to hear someone quoting "Deepest snow since 1962/3".
Also - over how many days did that snow accumulate? Makes me wonder about a
record daily accumulation of snow.

Richard

I was in North Kent and most of it came Saturday night and Sunday morning.
I had trouble working out which car was mine out of all the colourless
white humps.

It obviously varied a good bit from place top place. In Cranleigh,
Surrey, following the first big fall overnight 26-27 Dec, I measured the
depth as 7in. It had started snowing about dusk, and the snow was
initially very fine and very light. The last time I checked that
evening, probably around 8 or 9pm, only about half an inch had
accumulated, so it was a shock to wake up to so much the next morning.
It stopped around 10am, I think, with another hour's worth around noon.

The fall that Bob refers to was the second heavy one here and was a
genuine blizzard, unlike the first fall when there was very little wind.
Measuring the depth was problematic, owing both to the drifting and the
fact that I was using a one foot ruler. But my best estimate of the
total depth lying was 14 inches. There had been no noticeable thawing
since the first fall, but there may have been some compaction. So that
second fall added at least another 7 inches and possibly an inch or two
more. The snow ceased about 9am. I don't know what time it had begun. We
didn't get any of Peter's freezing rain here.

Then there was another 3 inches or so on the evening of New Year's Eve.

On the evening of 2nd January, I recall the evening weather forecast
showing a map with the word "Blizzards" shown as the weather for the
next day for all of the south and midlands, the first time I had ever
seen the word used on an official forecast map. In fact it proved a damp
squib here, though not in other places. After beginning as snow on the
late evening of the 2nd, by the next morning it had turned to drizzle,
with a temperature of 1C or so. There was an inch of fresh snow on the
bird table - I don't know if there had been more overnight but the rest
had thawed. By the afternoon it was dry and, though heavily overcast,
the temperature was back below freezing. By then, the total depth must
have been close to 18 inches, and that was the greatest depth here that
winter. Even wearing wellies, if you were uncautious you risked snow
coming in over the tops if you went into an untrampled area.

I was 14 at the time, and already a keen observer of the weather.
--
John Hall
"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless
information."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

On 2 Feb, 16:39, Graham P Davis wrote:
Richard Dixon wrote:
"peter clarke" wrote in
:

*Since writing the above I have been in contact with a COL member *who
*lives
on Epsom Downs at 115m. His snowdepth this morning was 39cm and in
1987 his snowcover was 30cm. This seems to confirm that , in this part
of England, it looks as though it has been the heaviest snowfall
since the last days of December 1962.
It is now snowing quite heavily again; I must remeasure the snowdepth
later this afternoon.

Get in contact with the BBC Weather guys - they've got 30cm as the highest
so far !

It's pretty stunning to hear someone quoting "Deepest snow since 1962/3".
Also - over how many days did that snow accumulate? Makes me wonder about
a record daily accumulation of snow.

Richard

Rushden (Northants) had 24" of snow in 4 hours on 4th March 1970. I think
that beats anything we've got or will get today.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. *E-mail: newsman not newsboy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I remember it well. I was playing Rugby that day, in Rugby, and four
of the school team had to go to A&E after the match - with frostbite.
I remember the snow was filling up the playing field faster than we
could run around. I also remember the tears of cold freezing on my
cheeks (the max at Rugby was -4°C that day). I thought I would never
get the feeling back into my fingers.

None of this 'it's snowing, let's close the school' stuff then, me
lad!

--
Stephen Burt
Stratfield Mortimer, Berkshire