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The cold spell of February 1991, 30 years ago now.


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Posted
  • Location: Battersea, London
  • Location: Battersea, London

 What a nice coincidence, just has we are experiencing a very cold spell of weather with easterly winds, 30 years ago at exactly the same time, we had a very cold and snowy spell of weather. at that time I remember working at Westminster in Central London, as Security Guard, with 8 inches of snow outside,that was very impressive for London. The maximum temperature on the 6th and 7th was between -4 and -6, it stayed cold for over a week, I remember sledging at Richmond park Southwest London in the sunshine. the following Sunday. So what was the reason for such cold weather at that time? Well, looking back at January 1991,that month was dominated by anticyclonic conditions, in fact, there was mini easterly spell around mid mouth, so maybe this provided the base for anticyclonic build in Scandinavia later.and  for low pressure systems under the anticyclone to drive very cold air west from Siberia, in fact, a very cold lobe of air mass  broke off  from a bigger lobe,and moved west towards  Western Europe.  England had direct hit with uppers of -16 arriving on the 7th, in the South East.I have a photo of myself in a foot of snow at Caterham Surrey,this just shows at the time, the heavy snow fall. 

Gender Male Location Battersea London.

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Posted
  • Location: Longlevens, 16m ASL (H)/Bradley Stoke, 75m ASL (W)
  • Weather Preferences: Hot sunny summers, cold snowy winters
  • Location: Longlevens, 16m ASL (H)/Bradley Stoke, 75m ASL (W)
14 hours ago, Nigerian Prince said:

 What a nice coincidence, just has we are experiencing a very cold spell of weather with easterly winds, 30 years ago at exactly the same time, we had a very cold and snowy spell of weather. at that time I remember working at Westminster in Central London, as Security Guard, with 8 inches of snow outside,that was very impressive for London. The maximum temperature on the 6th and 7th was between -4 and -6, it stayed cold for over a week, I remember sledging at Richmond park Southwest London in the sunshine. the following Sunday. So what was the reason for such cold weather at that time? Well, looking back at January 1991,that month was dominated by anticyclonic conditions, in fact, there was mini easterly spell around mid mouth, so maybe this provided the base for anticyclonic build in Scandinavia later.and  for low pressure systems under the anticyclone to drive very cold air west from Siberia, in fact, a very cold lobe of air mass  broke off  from a bigger lobe,and moved west towards  Western Europe.  England had direct hit with uppers of -16 arriving on the 7th, in the South East.I have a photo of myself in a foot of snow at Caterham Surrey,this just shows at the time, the heavy snow fall. 

Gender Male Location Battersea London.

IMG_0140.JPG

archivesnh-1991-2-3-0-1.png

archives-1991-1-14-0-0.png

archives-1991-1-22-0-0.png

archives-1991-1-28-0-0.png

archives-1991-2-1-0-0.png

archives-1991-2-5-0-0.png

archives-1991-2-5-0-1 (1).png

archives-1991-2-6-0-0.png

archives-1991-2-7-0-0.png

archives-1991-2-7-0-1 (1).png

archives-1991-2-8-0-0 (2).png

archives-1991-2-10-0-0 (1).png

This was an awesome spell and puts this current one well and truly to shame.

I was still at secondary school then and remember waking up to a deep covering of snow and listening on the radio to hear if school was shut or not - nothing mentioned by the time I had to leave to go get the bus, so a bit of a grumpy trudge up the road only for my dad to follow along 5 mins later to tell us school had indeed been shut after all.

The snow stayed on the ground for over a week and several times we had little top ups with very fine flakes falling, on one occasion so fine I thought it was rain that had arrived. After a few days school was back open and I remember double games the PE teachers had us change into our rugby kit and then run up the local hill where we were then free to go sledging on any plastic bags we had with us. By time I got back to the changing rooms I was bitter cold and took half my lunchtime just to be able to get changed back into my uniform, so cold were my hands, I stuggled to do up my shirt buttons!

Definitely a benchmark cold spell I use to determine how good winter has been.

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Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire

Remember it very well and can't believe it's 30 years ago!  I did have some good photos but sadly have long since been lost.

This current cold spell marking the 30 year anniversary has been a poor show indeed.......

Edited by Don
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