Hi

Last year I developed a method of estimating snowfall from looking at the daily Central England Temperature and England Wales precipitation series. I thought it made a fairly good stab at producing a Central England Snowfall series and one of the weather events it highlighted was the bitterly cold period in January 1987. I thought then I would blog in more detail about what I remembered - It’s hard to believe that all happened 27 years ago!

My estimate using that method was for 7.1 cm of snow for the 11 January 1987 making it the 21st snowiest day in Central England since 1931, but that was way of the mark for Louth in Lincolnshire where we lived at the time, and I can still remember quite clearly over 30 cm of the lightest powder snow accumulating during Sunday the 11th. There hadn't been a lot of wind initially, but when I tried to motor into RAF Binbrook to start a day shift on the Monday morning, the wind (which must have picked up around dawn) had cleared all the snow from the fields and dumped it on all the lanes that crossed the wolds, that snow lasted for weeks (see image). As you can imagine I didn't make it in for the day shift and the observer who started out doing the Sunday night shift ended being there till the following Saturday.

I now have the SYNOP charts to look at this week in more detail, and I also have the upper air data for this year, but I still have to extract it from DVD and build an archive before I can fully access it. I've attached the 1000-500 hPa thickness chart (hand drawn from the Molfax chart at the time) just to give you an idea how cold this air really was, forget the blue 528 line, forget the brown 510 line, this was purple 498 thicknesses, at least for a time before the cold pool warmed out as it drifted westward, because amazingly warmer air did chased it away from the east if I remember correctly, and by Thursday surface temperatures where recovering to above 0°C.

Finally I've included an animated plotted chart for the east of England for the main synoptic hours. I suspect that the intensity of the cold air over England and Wales was not matched by any other day in the 20th century, but I don’t have the upper air records to prove that conclusively, hopefully one day, the Met Office will make this upper air data available online to see if I’m right!

Bruce.

(1) 1200 UTC plotted UK SYNOP charts for 9-17 January 1987
(2) 1000-500 hPa thickness for 13 Jan 0000 UTC
(3) Eastern England plotted animation 10-15 Jan 1987
(4) January 1987 Synoptic charts

http://xmetman.wordpress.com/2014/01...-january-1987/

In article ,
exmetman writes:
Last year I developed a method of estimating snowfall from
looking at the daily Central England Temperature and England
Wales precipitation series. I thought it made a fairly good stab at
producing a Central England Snowfall series and one of the
weather events it highlighted was the bitterly cold period in
January 1987. I thought then I would blog in more detail about
what I remembered - It’s hard to believe that all happened 27
years ago!

My estimate using that method was for 7.1 cm of snow for the 11
January 1987 making it the 21st snowiest day in Central England
since 1931, but that was way of the mark for Louth in Lincolnshire
where we lived at the time, and I can still remember quite clearly
over 30 cm of the lightest powder snow accumulating during
Sunday the 11th.
snip

I suspect that the low temperatures made the snowfall unusually dry and
powdery, such that a modest amount of precipitation (once melted)
equated to an awful lot of snow. Also I think Louth is fairly near the
east coast, isn't it, which may have meant that it had more snowfall
than places in Central England that are farther west.

Thanks for a fascinating analysis.
--
John Hall "He crams with cans of poisoned meat
The subjects of the King,
And when they die by thousands G.K.Chesterton:
Why, he laughs like anything." from "Song Against Grocers"

Hi Bruce.
Picked this up earlier on another forum and looks really interesting, so looking forward to reading properly later.

John

I really should have spent more time in fleshing that blog out and forgot to say that the whole east coast was experiencing 'lake effect' snow showers with continuous shower activity from CB's spawned by sea temperatures that must have been no colder than 5 or 6°C.

Bruce.

On Tuesday, 14 January 2014 13:33:35 UTC, exmetman wrote:
Hi Last year I developed a method of estimating snowfall from looking at the daily Central England Temperature and England Wales precipitation series. I thought it made a fairly good stab at producing a Central England Snowfall series and one of the weather events it highlighted was the bitterly cold period in January 1987. I thought then I would blog in more detail about what I remembered - It’s hard to believe that all happened 27 years ago! My estimate using that method was for 7.1 cm of snow for the 11 January 1987 making it the 21st snowiest day in Central England since 1931, but that was way of the mark for Louth in Lincolnshire where we lived at the time, and I can still remember quite clearly over 30 cm of the lightest powder snow accumulating during Sunday the 11th. There hadn't been a lot of wind initially, but when I tried to motor into RAF Binbrook to start a day shift on the Monday morning, the wind (which must have picked up around dawn) had cleared all the snow from the fields and dumped it on all the lanes that crossed the wolds, that snow lasted for weeks (see image). As you can imagine I didn't make it in for the day shift and the observer who started out doing the Sunday night shift ended being there till the following Saturday. I now have the SYNOP charts to look at this week in more detail, and I also have the upper air data for this year, but I still have to extract it from DVD and build an archive before I can fully access it. I've attached the 1000-500 hPa thickness chart (hand drawn from the Molfax chart at the time) just to give you an idea how cold this air really was, forget the blue 528 line, forget the brown 510 line, this was purple 498 thicknesses, at least for a time before the cold pool warmed out as it drifted westward, because amazingly warmer air did chased it away from the east if I remember correctly, and by Thursday surface temperatures where recovering to above 0°C. Finally I've included an animated plotted chart for the east of England for the main synoptic hours. I suspect that the intensity of the cold air over England and Wales was not matched by any other day in the 20th century, but I don’t have the upper air records to prove that conclusively, hopefully one day, the Met Office will make this upper air data available online to see if I’m right! Bruce. (1) 1200 UTC plotted UK SYNOP charts for 9-17 January 1987 (2) 1000-500 hPa thickness for 13 Jan 0000 UTC (3) Eastern England plotted animation 10-15 Jan 1987 (4) January 1987 Synoptic charts http://xmetman.wordpress.com/2014/01...-january-1987/

The total precipitation here during that cold spell was 33 mm, all of it snow and the maximum depth was 39 cm. The serious snow fell on the evening of the 12th and during the 13th and fell from cloud so thin you could see the moon through it. Snow depths on the Downs of Kent and east Surrey were up to about 4 feet. The temperature here was below 0°C for over 10 days and the lowest max was -9.2°, a figure I could hardly believe.

There is one precedent that I know of, that of 1 Feb 1956, when the thickness was also down to 498. Purple is 492, BTW, or 582 if you prefer. A bit much, either of them. :-)

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, NE Surrey, 556 ft.

Hi Tudor

I obviously did'nt get enough practice with the purple!

I'd love to have a look at the 1956 event, but can only go back to 1973 both with the SYNOP and UA data at the moment. I suppose I could force myself to visit the Met Office library at Exeter (I'm only 10 miles away) who are usually very helpful, but it would need transcribing from the Daily Weather reports of the time, and I'm not sure if they published or hold a similar publication for upper air reports.

My memory for names is terrible but I'm sure I know you from my Nimbus days....

Bruce.

Tudor Hughes wrote:
On Tuesday, 14 January 2014 13:33:35 UTC, exmetman wrote:
Hi Last year I developed a method of estimating snowfall from looking at the daily Central England Temperature and England Wales precipitation series. I thought it made a fairly good stab at producing a Central England Snowfall series and one of the weather events it highlighted was the bitterly cold period in January 1987. I thought then I would blog in more detail about what I remembered - It’s hard to believe that all happened 27 years ago! My estimate using that method was for 7.1 cm of snow for the 11 January 1987 making it the 21st snowiest day in Central England since 1931, but that was way of the mark for Louth in Lincolnshire where we lived at the time, and I can still remember quite clearly over 30 cm of the lightest powder snow accumulating during Sunday the 11th. There hadn't been a lot of wind initially, but when I tried to motor into RAF Binbrook to start a day shift on the Monday morning, the wind (which must have picked up around dawn) had cleared all the
snow from the fields and dumped it on all the lanes that crossed the wolds, that snow lasted for weeks (see image). As you can imagine I didn't make it in for the day shift and the observer who started out doing the Sunday night shift ended being there till the following Saturday. I now have the SYNOP charts to look at this week in more detail, and I also have the upper air data for this year, but I still have to extract it from DVD and build an archive before I can fully access it. I've attached the 1000-500 hPa thickness chart (hand drawn from the Molfax chart at the time) just to give you an idea how cold this air really was, forget the blue 528 line, forget the brown 510 line, this was purple 498 thicknesses, at least for a time before the cold pool warmed out as it drifted westward, because amazingly warmer air did chased it away from the east if I remember correctly, and by Thursday surface temperatures where recovering to above 0°C. Finally I've included an animated pl
otted chart for the east of England for the main synoptic hours. I suspect that the intensity of the cold air over England and Wales was not matched by any other day in the 20th century, but I don’t have the upper air records to prove that conclusively, hopefully one day, the Met Office will make this upper air data available online to see if I’m right! Bruce. (1) 1200 UTC plotted UK SYNOP charts for 9-17 January 1987 (2) 1000-500 hPa thickness for 13 Jan 0000 UTC (3) Eastern England plotted animation 10-15 Jan 1987 (4) January 1987 Synoptic charts http://xmetman.wordpress.com/2014/01...-january-1987/

The total precipitation here during that cold spell was 33 mm, all of it snow and the maximum depth was 39 cm. The serious snow fell on the evening of the 12th and during the 13th and fell from cloud so thin you could see the moon through it. Snow depths on the Downs of Kent and east Surrey were up to about 4 feet. The temperature here was below 0°C for over 10 days and the lowest max was -9.2°, a figure I could hardly believe.

There is one precedent that I know of, that of 1 Feb 1956, when the thickness was also down to 498. Purple is 492, BTW, or 582 if you prefer. A bit much, either of them. :-)

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, NE Surrey, 556 ft.

---------------------------------------------------------
A memorable week in Essex as well. I was working at a Waste Water
Treatment Plant in Rainham at the time and the sewage (which never
usually drops below 10C) was freezing on the bar screens as it entered
the works and causing the flow to back up. An engineer installed
temporary electric heating and tarpaulins were put round the area to
protect it from the biting north easterly winds.
The coldest week in my lifetime which includes 1963.
Dave

On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 01:09:11 -0800 (PST)
exmetman wrote:

I obviously did'nt get enough practice with the purple!

Not such a bad thing as purple pencils used to have to be bought out of
your own pocket whereas blue and red were provided by the office. I
never quite understood why warm- and cold-front pencils were free but
not occlusion ones.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. Mail: 'newsman' not 'newsboy'.
The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write
with. - MARTY FELDMAN

On 15/01/2014 12:21, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 01:09:11 -0800 (PST)
exmetman wrote:

I obviously did'nt get enough practice with the purple!

Not such a bad thing as purple pencils used to have to be bought out of
your own pocket whereas blue and red were provided by the office. I
never quite understood why warm- and cold-front pencils were free but
not occlusion ones.

Wow, that must have been a long time ago - I didn't have to pay for my
purple pencils! I remember we had to guard our ball point pens with our
lives as you could only get a replacement by giving up the old ones. You
know, those black ones. Getting well off topic now!

On Wednesday, 15 January 2014 09:09:11 UTC, exmetman wrote:
Hi Tudor I obviously did'nt get enough practice with the purple! I'd love to have a look at the 1956 event, but can only go back to 1973 both with the SYNOP and UA data at the moment. I suppose I could force myself to visit the Met Office library at Exeter (I'm only 10 miles away) who are usually very helpful, but it would need transcribing from the Daily Weather reports of the time, and I'm not sure if they published or hold a similar publication for upper air reports. My memory for names is terrible but I'm sure I know you from my Nimbus days... Bruce.

There is an interesting article by Roger Brugge on this cold spell (and others) in Weather Vol 42 No. 5, May 1987. There are charts of MSLP and of 500 mb height and thickness.

BTW I joined the Met Office in Jan 64 and left in Nov 66. Too many unpredictable shift rosters. For the last 30 years I've "done it in the back garden".

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.