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Cold ends to winter and starts to spring


damianslaw

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Posted
  • Location: Cheshire
  • Location: Cheshire

Looking a lot further back, a memorable day for me was Sunday 15th March 1964. It was the day of my Confirmation and the weather (if not the gods) did everything to ruin the day. In Surrey, the rain poured down all morning, putting paid to any outside photos of the candidates in their finery. But worse was to follow as the rain turned to heavy snow and was thick on the ground by dusk. And it was not just local to the North Downs area, with Philip Eden reporting ''extensive snow, deepest in the Midlands and Yorkshire where 25-30cm fell".

What was more remarkable was that the snow followed a mild February, with J H Brazell in 'London Weather' reporting a mean of 41.3F in London, +1.4 above the Feb average at the time. And Brazell reported a March maximum temperature of 57.0F on the 13th, just two days before the snow, with a highest minimum of 45.9F on the 14th. Jan and Feb 1964 had been dry but the rain and snow of the 15th put paid to that, with over an inch of rain and snow falling that day and a total of 224% of average for March.   

I have no idea how the rain and snow of that day came about and it would be interesting to see the weather charts for what was a memorable day for me.

 

Edited by A Face like Thunder
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Posted
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, snowy winters and warm, sunny summers
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland
On 29/01/2020 at 21:58, damianslaw said:

Yes just posted a thread on Feb 2008 and mentioned the snow in March and April 2008.

April 1989 was unusual indeed coming on the back of four very mild months. Not sure what happened there, was there a late SSW that downwelled in April. It was an odd month, as it then turned warm in May, with a run of very warm months following.

The best example is March/April 1974, that came on the back of a very mild and preety snowless winter..

Would be interesting to note whether these cold snowy spells especially those later in March and in April came after SSW events. My post is about late Feb and early March, when you don't need a SSW to deliver cold and snow, just a bout of cold NW/N airstreams can do the trick - or high pressure to the NE/N/E, late season cold and snow (late March onwards) usually needs a more fundamental change in the arctic profile to manifest itself.

My classification of late season is roughly 21 March - late April. 

 

There was a major SSW in February 1989 and there was some downwelling in early to mid-March with a -NAM but it was temporary and had to wait 'til April for a more pronounced downwell.

SSWC_NAM60_ERAi_FEB_1989.thumb.png.3680aff546b04f34bfcb8641b63dd651.png

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Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
On 31/01/2020 at 13:30, BruenSryan said:

There was a major SSW in February 1989 and there was some downwelling in early to mid-March with a -NAM but it was temporary and had to wait 'til April for a more pronounced downwell.

SSWC_NAM60_ERAi_FEB_1989.thumb.png.3680aff546b04f34bfcb8641b63dd651.png

Late February 1989 did feature a cold snap with snow for some.

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Posted
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
7 minutes ago, Don said:

Late February 1989 did feature a cold snap with snow for some.

Yes colder compared to the rest of the winter with snow for favoured areas but it was a very lacksture and tame cold snap.

Edited by North-Easterly Blast
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Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
15 minutes ago, mr.splinter said:

What about 2008? A mild winter was followed by snow over Easter, which was very early (23rd March). Then we had our only lying snow of the winter (in London) on 6th April.

Same here, but had all but gone by mid afternoon.  Still enough to provide a few hours of enjoyment, though.

Edited by Don
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Posted
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
  • Weather Preferences: Winter: cold and snowy. Summer: hot and sunny
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)

In all honesty, unless we get a beast from the east type event in early to mid March, I have no interest in cold Spring weather. It’s that time of year when I tend to want it to warm up and unless we have something exceptional, such as March 2018, it rarely delivers more than transitory snow for lowland Britain. 

Edited by danm
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Posted
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire

I think that 2016 was one of the rare examples in the last 30 odd years where a very mild winter was followed by a March that wasn't mild overall; only other similar example I can think of was 1995.

Edited by North-Easterly Blast
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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

I thought of the first fortnight of March 1999 as a letdown, plenty of northern blocking but temperatures in the UK were just a little below average (3.8 for 5-11 March compared with the 61-90 March norm of 5.7C) and while there was a bit of snow for some, it didn't last long.  In the Tyne and Wear area the spell brought very high rainfall totals with a bit of sleet at times.  It then turned much milder.  The mid-April 1999 cold snap on the other hand was rather more potent.

Similarly I thought of early March 1998 as rather half-hearted - there were a couple of brief snowfalls in Tyneside (on the 1st and 6th) but then it turned mild.  Again, there was rather more widespread cold snowy weather in mid-April that year than in early March.

I imagine that if I'd been a few years older I may have put 1990 in the same category although early 1990 comes across as having been packed with more in the way of interesting and noteworthy weather, with some spells of exceptional warmth accompanied by sunshine, some noteworthy wet and windy outbreaks too, and the number of days with sleet/snow falling in February was surprisingly high in many parts of the country considering how warm the month was.

1995 often stands out for me as an example of a very mild winter followed by a wintry March, even though March was only slightly colder than average overall due to a few mild interludes mixed in with the cold ones.  Snow was widespread on the 27th/28th as well as during the first week, and I remember the GMTV forecast on the 2nd excitedly exclaiming, "And tonight, more snow will push in, not from the west, but from the south-west!".  There were also some wintry showers at times between the 15th and 20th.  But many of those who have lived longer than I might be able to think of starker examples, most likely 1975.

Edited by Thundery wintry showers
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