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White Easters


damianslaw

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Posted
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, snowy winters and warm, sunny summers
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland

Have seen no white Easters in my time (and 1 technical white Christmas in 2004 although 2010 had deep cover lying). 2013 probably closest but all lying snow, that occurred on Wednesday 27th March, was well gone before the Sunday. 

Good Friday 1975 on 28 March was a white one here going by the archive below, following a pretty snowless and exceptionally mild winter. Unstable north to northeasterly flow that day.

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WWW.RTE.IE

Scenes of a snow covered Phoenix Park in Dublin.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Broxbourne, Herts
  • Weather Preferences: Snow snow and snow
  • Location: Broxbourne, Herts
4 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

The snowy Easters I recall in 1975 and 2008 were both in March.

Although Easter 1975 was in March, it wasn't until after the first week of April that the school  Easter holidays were over.  I can well remember how, having not done a stroke of homework until the monday before the return to school, my plans to fill that day by doing homework were wrecked by 5 inches of snow falling.  So much that Hertfordshire made it into the national news for the amount of snow we'd had. It was heaven closely followed by hell the next day when it had all melted and much of my homework remained undone as I travelled into school!! 

I'm guessing this must have been the chart the day before that return to school...

 

923746633_April1975.thumb.jpg.1e3ea681424c50fede07fbe2c7709ca5.jpg

 

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Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
4 hours ago, snow mad said:

I’ve seen two white Easters in my time both with falling snow. 2008 was decent. But I’ve never seen falling snow at Christmas in 40 years. We had snow on the ground 2010 but the thaw was already well set in. 

Blimey that’s surprising, although I guess the times I’ve seen snow fall on Christmas ie 1999, 2001 and 2004, there was a westerly element to the latter northerlies, and the former was a westerly so I was better placed. 1995, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2017 and 2020 all had snow within days of Christmas here so the festive period definitely wipes the floor with Easter for snow in my location.

I can remember far more Easters sunbathing.

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Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl

Suspect on average Christmas has been snowier and colder than Easter here, but there will be a fair number of colder easters than Christmas periods and snowier ones. Easter given it can occur between a 5 week window brings much more varied weather than Christmas, temp wise at least. 

We were spoilt last Easter, this one is currently looking distinctly average at best..

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Dundee
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, thunderstorms, gales. All extremes except humidity.
  • Location: Dundee

Now looking like the end of this Easter weekend may be quite wintry starting in the North on Sunday. Snow mostly confined to the usual areas in a Northerly but the odd shower cannot be ruled out anywhere on Monday and Tuesday.

In my lifetime (retired now) I have seen far more white (lying snow) Christmases  than Easters. Ditto with my birthday which is in late March. Falling snow maybe not such a difference. 
Easter 2013 was cold and there was still some snow around but the one that I remember most was way back in 1975 following a very mild Winter. What was remarkable to me was that the strong Northerly winds persisted for such an extended time without any  warm sectors. It was mostly cloudy too so any snow stuck without the warm Spring sunshine. Where I lived then in Highland Perthshire there was little heavy snow as we were sheltered from the North but numerous days with light snow and snow grains. I had an Easter job driving a van delivering from Perthshire all the way up to Speyside and it was noticeable how the snow depths increased as I drove North with over a foot up near Aviemore and much more drifted in the hills. The upper tows at Cairngorm had to be dug out in early April and I remember skiing the Coire Cas at the end of May that year. Also that year there was a decent snowfall in the first two days of June lying down to quite low levels in the Highlands and NE Scotland and also on the second more widely throughout the UK. The rest of the Summer was warm and sunny with some good thunderstorms.

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Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
21 minutes ago, Norrance said:

Now looking like the end of this Easter weekend may be quite wintry starting in the North on Sunday. Snow mostly confined to the usual areas in a Northerly but the odd shower cannot be ruled out anywhere on Monday and Tuesday.

In my lifetime (retired now) I have seen far more white (lying snow) Christmases  than Easters. Ditto with my birthday which is in late March. Falling snow maybe not such a difference. 
Easter 2013 was cold and there was still some snow around but the one that I remember most was way back in 1975 following a very mild Winter. What was remarkable to me was that the strong Northerly winds persisted for such an extended time without any  warm sectors. It was mostly cloudy too so any snow stuck without the warm Spring sunshine. Where I lived then in Highland Perthshire there was little heavy snow as we were sheltered from the North but numerous days with light snow and snow grains. I had an Easter job driving a van delivering from Perthshire all the way up to Speyside and it was noticeable how the snow depths increased as I drove North with over a foot up near Aviemore and much more drifted in the hills. The upper tows at Cairngorm had to be dug out in early April and I remember skiing the Coire Cas at the end of May that year. Also that year there was a decent snowfall in the first two days of June lying down to quite low levels in the Highlands and NE Scotland and also on the second more widely throughout the UK. The rest of the Summer was warm and sunny with some good thunderstorms.

Late March - mid April 1975 must have felt very odd caught in the middle of an exceptionally milder than average period. Winter 74-75 was very mild hardly any snow or cold, then the heat arrived just after the snow in early June. Summer 75 was nearly as hot as Summer 76. The following winter was also very mild. April 89 was quite similar, an oddity in a sea of very mild weather.

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Posted
  • Location: Penrith Cumbria
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, snowy winters and warm sunny summers
  • Location: Penrith Cumbria

For me Easter 1975 is still the snowiest Easter nationwide with widespread and disruptive snow events throughout the holiday period. Birmingham was brought to a standstill by a particularly heavy fall of snow on Maundy Thursday with 19cms falling at Edgbaston while 15cms lay in North Kent on Easter Monday. The cold weather persisted till mid April with repeated northerly outbreaks and then the June snow event 6 weeks later. Remarkable.

Andy

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Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
1 hour ago, Penrith Snow said:

For me Easter 1975 is still the snowiest Easter nationwide with widespread and disruptive snow events throughout the holiday period. Birmingham was brought to a standstill by a particularly heavy fall of snow on Maundy Thursday with 19cms falling at Edgbaston while 15cms lay in North Kent on Easter Monday. The cold weather persisted till mid April with repeated northerly outbreaks and then the June snow event 6 weeks later. Remarkable.

Andy

Given the very mild winter, without looking closely at the synoptics  I suspect there had been a very strong polar vortex preceding it bottling up a pool of very cold air over the arctic,  hence when it was released it was exceptionally cold. Some of the coldest spells in April seem to happen after very mild winters with dominant PV, think 1989, 2008. 

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Posted
  • Location: Penrith Cumbria
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, snowy winters and warm sunny summers
  • Location: Penrith Cumbria
53 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Given the very mild winter, without looking closely at the synoptics  I suspect there had been a very strong polar vortex preceding it bottling up a pool of very cold air over the arctic,  hence when it was released it was exceptionally cold. Some of the coldest spells in April seem to happen after very mild winters with dominant PV, think 1989, 2008. 

Yes good analysis, do you have any knowledge of the Easter 1975 cold spell in Cumbria? I lived in Birmingham at the time and remember well the Maundy Thursday blizzard. I wonder if snowfalls also affected Cumbria?

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Posted
  • Location: NR Worthing SE Coast
  • Location: NR Worthing SE Coast

I can remember 1975 in  late March as an 8 year old waking up to snowfall on the ground and settling everywhere and covering the blossom on the cherry tree in the front garden,ah the memories of childhood.Miss those years.

Edited by SLEETY
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Posted
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
On 02/04/2021 at 21:36, damianslaw said:

Late March - mid April 1975 must have felt very odd caught in the middle of an exceptionally milder than average period. Winter 74-75 was very mild hardly any snow or cold, then the heat arrived just after the snow in early June. Summer 75 was nearly as hot as Summer 76. The following winter was also very mild. April 89 was quite similar, an oddity in a sea of very mild weather.

May 1975 was also cool with a CET of 9.9.  So the pattern of late March / early April returned in May that year.

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Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
On 03/04/2021 at 10:04, Penrith Snow said:

Yes good analysis, do you have any knowledge of the Easter 1975 cold spell in Cumbria? I lived in Birmingham at the time and remember well the Maundy Thursday blizzard. I wonder if snowfalls also affected Cumbria?

Hi, no I don't, will need to look at the synoptics, just my assumptions..

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Perth, Scotland
  • Location: Perth, Scotland

Easter 2008 I remember having some snow in Perth, and it being accompanied by a bitter NE wind. I can’t recall if it lay for long though. I think it did for a couple of days and melted quickly. Easter 2013 also had a couple of flurries as well in the morning but they didn’t last, Easter 2018 apparently had some sleet on Good Friday but I was away and missed it.

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