If you could travel back in time to relive a memorable weather event

[Snowyowl9]

The little ice age.

Or I would travel back to when I was born and skip all the drizzle and rain.

Anything to do with thunder had to see all that again.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Snowyowl9

[Leon1]

winter of 2010, 2011, 2013

[Summer of 95]

August 1912 and August 1956 to see how they really compared to those crap summer months between 2007 and 2012. 

[Snowyowl9]

15 hours ago, Summer of 95 said:

August 1912 and August 1956 to see how they really compared to those crap summer months between 2007 and 2012. 

Expect they would`ve been much dryer and sunnier.

[hillbilly]

17 hours ago, Summer of 95 said:

August 1912 and August 1956 to see how they really compared to those crap summer months between 2007 and 2012. 

May. A wet start, but then there was a hot, sunny spell in the second week before it turned cooler again. It was warm at the end, with 28C reached in placs on the 28th.

June. Changeable, dull and cool. 83 mm of rain fell at Ross on Wye on the 5th. Up to that point it was the dullest June in England and Wales since 1909.

July. Wet, cool, and very dull. The mean temperature at Birmingham for the month was 13.7C, and Aldegrove (Northern Ireland) had just 86 hours of sunshine.

August. Very wet, cool, unsettled, and dull. There was some heavy rain and notable thunderstorms. 80 mm of rain was recorded at Bidston Liverpool on the 15th. 78 mm of rain fell in 1 hour at Freshwater (Isle of Wight) on the 22nd. There was no sunshine recorded at all at Tynemouth between the 16th and the 24th.

September. Although 27C was reached in parts of England on the 1st (and 30C at Regent's Park, after four days the weather deteriorated to become generally a wet and unsettled month. It waw particuarly wet in the NW, but drier in the east and SE. It was a sunny month in parts of the Midlands.

This is a description from 1954 as I always assumed that was the worst summer in the' Manchester summer index'
1985 180
2011 179
1922 178
1938 177
1948 176
1927 175
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1931 173
1978 173
1980 173
1909 171
1946 170
1987 169
2008 168
2012 164
1924 158
1912 156
1956 155
1907 147
1954 143

Manchester summer index lists 1954 as the worst  with 2012 just edging 2008 into 6th and 7th worst.

Edited February 6, 2018 by hillbilly

[danm]

In my lifetime? Probably Feb ‘91. I was born in 1986, so the freeze of Jan ‘87 is in my lifetime, however for obvious reasons I have no memory of it. 

Feb ‘91 on the other hand - I was only 5 at the time but do have memories of it. Plus quite a few photos. 

For suburban E/NE London no snow event has yet surpassed that since in my opinion. 

Feb 2009, December 2010, Feb 2012, Jan/Feb 2013 and several events in the 90s were all great, but none have yet produced multiple days of proper sub zero temperatures (daytime highs of -3/-4c for several days) or have produced the depth of snowfall that we got in Feb ‘91. It was a proper easterly in the true sense of the word. Powder snow, drifting, no marginality whatsoever, convective. 

Would love to relive that event.

[Deep Snow please]

As far as in my own life-time goes either of the winters of 2009/2010 or 2010/2011; January probably edges it for being more snowy. (I was living in the North East for both of these).

 

For all time events I'd have to look at the Winter of 1946-1947 or 1684.

 

I'm not a great one for summery weather, but there's something special (as a weather enthusiast, certainly not for those who's homes and businesses were ruined) about the 2012 storms (28 June and 5 August). The Newcastle quayside flooded twice in one summer!

[Snowyowl9]

Last week my dream come true that was all I was looking for with that easterly gales and blizzards.

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Snowyowl9

[Steve Groome]

Not a hard choice for me.

Winter 1962/63 was just !!AWESOME !!....living at over 500ft ASL, here in the Chilterns. We had a memorable blizzard on Dec 29th, with very strong Easterly winds whipping the powdery snow into huge drifts. It carried on snowing throughout the 29th right through the 30th.

At the time I  lived in a PREFAB, waking up on the 31st the snow drifts were level with my bedroom window sill.Walking down the hall to the East facing front door,there was a small snowdrift INSIDE the door ,where the snow had been blown through the crack in the door ,also tiny snowdrifts inside the East facing windows.

There was another severe blizzard on 19th-20th of January, with gale-force Easterly winds. By the end of the 20th,with the already lying snow, over 2ft of level snow lay on the ground with 6-8ft drifts. One thing that I  have always remembered is the freezing drizzle after it stopped snowing.I  could walk down my garden ON TOP  of the deep snow,on a thick layer of ice,and suddenly would fall through,up to my waist.

There has not been anything to compare to that winter since.

Steve

Edited March 17, 2018 by Steve Groome

[Relativistic]

On 2/6/2018 at 17:56, danm said:

In my lifetime? Probably Feb ‘91. I was born in 1986, so the freeze of Jan ‘87 is in my lifetime, however for obvious reasons I have no memory of it. 

Feb ‘91 on the other hand - I was only 5 at the time but do have memories of it. Plus quite a few photos. 

For suburban E/NE London no snow event has yet surpassed that since in my opinion. 

Feb 2009, December 2010, Feb 2012, Jan/Feb 2013 and several events in the 90s were all great, but none have yet produced multiple days of proper sub zero temperatures (daytime highs of -3/-4c for several days) or have produced the depth of snowfall that we got in Feb ‘91. It was a proper easterly in the true sense of the word. Powder snow, drifting, no marginality whatsoever, convective. 

Would love to relive that event.

Sounds like you didn't have to wait very long!

[Snowyowl9]

letttucing gutted laughs at every post for no reason.

Well its come back again today snow fix drifting well and truly overdone for one year.

[Lauren]

Would have to be some of the amazing UK thunderstorms of the mid to late 90s or the tropical thunderstorms I experienced in the Maldives.

[elfinpunk]

Well I would like to relive the Burn's Day storm of 1990 I think. I was but a tender 11 year old at school watching tiles, sheds and goodness knows what whipping around the place. Too dangerous to send us all home. Luckily our Victorian buildings were made of stern stuff. I remember bits but not the savagery of the wind. It may not be recalled as often as 1987's storm but for me it was something I would want to relive but not repeat.!

[feb1991blizzard]

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 17:56, danm said:

In my lifetime? Probably Feb ‘91. I was born in 1986, so the freeze of Jan ‘87 is in my lifetime, however for obvious reasons I have no memory of it. 

Feb ‘91 on the other hand - I was only 5 at the time but do have memories of it. Plus quite a few photos. 

For suburban E/NE London no snow event has yet surpassed that since in my opinion. 

Feb 2009, December 2010, Feb 2012, Jan/Feb 2013 and several events in the 90s were all great, but none have yet produced multiple days of proper sub zero temperatures (daytime highs of -3/-4c for several days) or have produced the depth of snowfall that we got in Feb ‘91. It was a proper easterly in the true sense of the word. Powder snow, drifting, no marginality whatsoever, convective. 

Would love to relive that event.

I can only speak for myself being in Birmingham (higher parts of South Birmingham (over 200m) but I think this is a popular misconception that it was an all powder snow event, yes the dustings and some of the heavy showers on the Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th were powder but later on on the 7th, there was an occlusion associated with a small low which made its way westward, it was only around 7pm when the temp rose from -8c to -5c that those massive flakes really started to appear, by around midnight it was rougly just under a foot - it only really started around 5pm so about 11 inches in a few hours but definitely due to larger flakes with moisture getting injected into the trough.

[feb1991blizzard]

Agree it was the most spectaculaer event ever though - ridiculous - couldn't see a metre in front of your face.

[philglossop]

Can I go back to the March blizzard of 1891? That sounds extreme and rather special? 

[Katrine Basso]

It would have to be the winter of 1978 to 1979 as I was staying a boarding school in Little Hadam in Hertfordshire and was told that were 5ft of snow.  I did not want to go out as I thought I would be drowned in snow as I had no experience of deep snow. I was 15 at the time and would like to relive it and instead of staying I would be going out when it was snowing and enjoy the snow.

[fujita5]

On ‎21‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 17:02, fujita5 said:

The severe thunderstorm of 24th June 1994.  It was a huge, violent MCS which moved NE across much of southern England and developed a strong mesoscale vortex so the whole storm system was visibly rotating as it approached.  The lightning was incredible, the gust front winds were powerful enough to lift a wall of sand as it came in along Clacton beach and it lasted for HOURS once it hit.  Clacton pier was struck numerous times, I was watching from under a beach shelter along the front.

The buildup to the storm was the most dramatic I've ever known with towers stretching so far up into the sky they seriously didn't look real.  The air ahead of the storm was strongly subsiding so there was a complete clearance of cloud as it came in.  Best UK storm I've ever seen.

I'd also like to revisit the Great Storm of 1987.  I was 12.  I slept through the worst of it, waking up about 6.30am by which time the sting jet gusts had already passed Clacton.  I'd love to be in an open field just to experience the 100mph+ gusts.

[Snowyowl9]

November 1985 to see how it stands up to other Novembers like for one the 1996 blizzard which I remember as being the heaviest November snowfall I`ve seen and by far the biggest November drifts during 1996.

[BruenSryan]

November 1919 cold and snowy spell which delivered very unusual extreme cold conditions to the UK and Ireland including -23c in Scotland on November 14th. 

[Portland Paul]

In Birmingham, February 1985 with the blizzards of 8th-9th followed by a long sunny period of severe frosts and huge icicles over 12 feet long. 

Or 8th August 1992, a strange Saturday late evening of dense fog combined with torrential thunderstorms and vivid lighting. 

Or 10th - 14th February 1998 with its phenomenally Mediterranean warm, sunny spell and temperatures of 18 or 19 c. 

Or perhaps 6th April 2008 (two weeks after Easter) waking up to over a foot of snow which had flattened the bamboos in the garden! 

In Portland, Dorset, the spectacular thunderstorms of early May 2011 and late May 2017, with colossal amounts of lightning on both occasions. 

Or the 14-15th February 2014, with that particularly severe storm (after so many that winter) which forced closure of the Chesil Beach Road for over 15 hours, and left salt spray to the extent that windows all over the island looked like they'd been sprayed with milk, plus some evergreen plants took over 2 years to recover afterwards such as they'd been burned so badly! 

Or the double whammy of heavy snow in March this year, the depth not seen on the Island for nearly 40 years, with 18 cm of level snow on 18th and 19th. Followed of course by the scorching summer, with lawns turning to straw (and still some of them recovering) 

[Chesil View]

if we're talking time travel. Then I would go back to the winter of 1684, the coldest on record in the uk.

For a singular event I'd travel back to the January blizzard of  18th-21st 1881.

[Dorsetbred]

On 23/10/2018 at 22:50, Portland Paul said:

Or the double whammy of heavy snow in March this year, the depth not seen on the Island for nearly 40 years, with 18 cm of level snow on 18th and 19th. Followed of course by the scorching summer, with lawns turning to straw (and still some of them recovering) 

You had 18cms of snow this year really? Living so close we were certainly not that fortunate to see anything here..

[John88B]

If I could travel back to a time in my life time it would be to Jan 8th 1982. The two day blizzard that hit the west country and south Wales.

I was living just north of Bristol and it snowed heavily from Friday evening until Sunday evening with the temperature never rising above minus 3 and a strong easterly wind. 

When all was said and done in dumped 40cm of level snow where I was living with huge drifts. There was much more, as much as 80cm of level snow on some of the hillier parts of South Wales and the west country. 

As a 12 year old lad I loved it and the week off school was fun! 

I've experienced some heavy snowfalls since but really nothing that came close to that. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by John88B

[Coopsy]

To ‘relive’ , mine would have to be Jan 1987. Living on the north downs of Kent we had 70cm’s and it dumped snow for days. Never seen anything like it in the UK since, and living in a Canada I’ve only seen similar once. But there’s something much more magical about it occurring in England as a child. 

I’d loved to have experienced the winter of 62/63. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Coopsy