[stu43t (OP)]

Hi Paul

Thanks for getting the photo to appear on the forum (clever stuff).

I had forgotten that it snowed liked that in 1978, but obviously it did. I had forgotten it because I was way too old to go out playing in the snow then and had my sights set on discos, nights out and having fun lol.

Does anyone remember the three day week, was it in 1974? dark days - literally!

[paul.fr]

The winter of '78, i was only 8 at the time and i honestly don't remember it. I do know that by the middle of January there were 6 foot drifts! I think the drifts and blizzards lasted until late February or early March.

I will try and post more when time permits.

In the meantime, this is a link to a set of Met.Office produced fact sheets. They are in pdf format, and are well worth reading and printing.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/library/factsheets.html

[paul.fr]

It is so hard to find facts about the winter of '78, after some searching on the net, i did manage to find this:

1978
Some interest in the winter, and a notable summer storm. At 11.53C, the equal warmest autumn of the century, and perhaps the driest, with many good spells of sunny weather.

January. Unsettled, windy, and wet, with heavy snow in the north. At Glasgow 17 cm of snow was the heaviest fall there since 1947. There was a storm on the 3rd, with tornadoes: a bad one damaged Newmarket. In particular, it caught a flight of geese, 136 falling dead out of the sky. As temperatures fell as low as 1C in the storms some of the precipitation fell as snow. There was another notable storm on the 11-12th when a northerly gale caused a storm surge in the North Sea; Margate Pier was destroyed. Flooding along the east coast. Gusts of 80 mph in London, with thunder, and snow in the north. Freezing fog in the south on the 18th (-3C), followed by snow. There was a great blizzard over the north of Scotland on the 25-29th, peaking on the 28th: people were trapped in cars, and helicopters were needed to rescue passengers from the Inverness to Wick train in the evening. This was the worst blizzard in the area since 1955.

February. Generally quite a cold (CET 2.8C) and snowy month. The start of the month was mild and unsettled. It then became very cold for two weeks from the 7th as a large anticyclone over Scandinavia directed easterly winds our way: the classic great cold setup. Snow showers in the east: 15 cm in parts of Kent by the 9th, 30 cm at Newcastle by the 13th. There were some exceptional blizzards as depressions ran close to the south, particularly in the southwest on the 18th-20th, centering on the 19th. 34 cm of snow at Exeter and Cardiff, with 8m drifts. 1m fell on Dartmoor. Snow fell over much of the south and Midlands. The great southwest blizzard was one of the great blizzards of this century, with the loss of several lives. Devon was particularly badly hit, by disruption extended to Hampshire and Wiltshire. Many places were cut off; Lynmouth until the 24th, and Hawkrdige on Exmoor remained cutoff until the 27th. Some low temperatures too, with many places beneath freezing throughout this cold period. -2C1 at Braemar on the 15th; and -17C at Edinburgh on the 17th, its equal record low; and the lowest of all, -22 at Keith (Grampian) on the 20th. Heavy freezing rain fell in Surrey on the 20th. The thaw set in about the 23rd: up to 15C in London. The rapid thaw casued flooding.

........

http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/1978_weather.htm

[CliffordK]

I bumped into this under the "Random Topics".

Perhaps it should better be titled "Careful What You Wish For".

How's the weather over there now?  It has actually been a very pleasant January here in Oregon.

[Mazurka]

There has been no significant extra snow since December  []
In fact I think it has been unseasonably dry (certianly here in Cumbria).  It also seems that as the ground was frozen before the snow, most of it just ran off during the thaw and did not infiltrate (like the geogrpahy books tell you it normally does [])