Weather abnormalities

[Buckman]

I have always been under the impression that it was the US that suffered the most tornadoes every year. I was quite surprised to read that the UK suffers more tornadoes per year than the US however the tornadoes in the UK are not as severe as the US.

At present I am watching a documentary on the "Big Snow" of 1982. Apparently the UK had a very wet summer in 1981 due to the jet stream not moving north and only doing so very late. I would think that we have a very similar summer this year, but hopefully we will not see a Big Snow again. Prior to 1982 it seems that the other Big snow was in 1952 so we may be overdue for another one?

How many of you remember the Big Snow of 1982 and had issues i.e. stuck on motorways etc?

 

[otherclive]

I have always been under the impression that it was the US that suffered the most tornadoes every year. I was quite surprised to read that the UK suffers more tornadoes per year than the US however the tornadoes in the UK are not as severe as the US.

At present I am watching a documentary on the "Big Snow" of 1982. Apparently the UK had a very wet summer in 1981 due to the jet stream not moving north and only doing so very late. I would think that we have a very similar summer this year, but hopefully we will not see a Big Snow again. Prior to 1982 it seems that the other Big snow was in 1952 so we may be overdue for another one?

How many of you remember the Big Snow of 1982 and had issues i.e. stuck on motorways etc?

I remember it well as a friend and I walked 8 miles to work and back along country lanes only sustained by our hip flasks. We were not too pleased to discover that many of those who lived nearby the site hadn’t bothered to go in. My boss though had driven and dug his way from Plymouth to Bath in his Morris 1800 Land Crab. But then spent time off of work with sciatica 😂

I like a good snowfall especially now we are retired and can choose our time and places to go. I’ve even got my road salt container topped up using a local council bin. We live at the bottom of a close so driving out requires some momentum. The runabout will be fitted with all season tyres as it’s existing tyres are five years old and showing cracks on the edge of the tread, plus they are a Yokohama budget tyre.

 

[RogerL]

I have always been under the impression that it was the US that suffered the most tornadoes every year. I was quite surprised to read that the UK suffers more tornadoes per year than the US however the tornadoes in the UK are not as severe as the US.

At present I am watching a documentary on the "Big Snow" of 1982. Apparently the UK had a very wet summer in 1981 due to the jet stream not moving north and only doing so very late. I would think that we have a very similar summer this year, but hopefully we will not see a Big Snow again. Prior to 1982 it seems that the other Big snow was in 1952 so we may be overdue for another one?

How many of you remember the Big Snow of 1982 and had issues i.e. stuck on motorways etc?

We also had a "big snow" in '63 - in East Anglia some of the drifts were as high as our double-decker school bus - there was still snow lying on the fields 3 months later.

In '82 I was commuting 50 miles each way across to Northampton - I only lost one day's work and that was because of numpties who couldn't get up the slight incline out of our estate - although I did experience carburettor icing in our Ford Escort, a short stop to let the engine heat defrost it sorted it out.

 

[Ukdave2002]

How many of you remember the Big Snow of 1982 and had issues i.e. stuck on motorways etc?

I remember very well it for a very gory reason…..

It was my first year at Bristol Poly, I was living in the John Reid halls of residence, located at the top of a hill on Redland Court Rd. It was the January of 1982 , we had a load of snow, lectures were cancelled so after the obligatory snow ball fights we were enjoying watching drivers struggling to make its up the hill.
One vehicle that that was crawling up the hill was a small ridged lorry with a box trailer, it was getting slower and slower attempting to get to the top, but failed to do so. Unfortunately it didn’t simply stop, but started to slide backwards, about 10 meters behind it was an elderly man with his shopping, sadly he couldn’t get out of the way and was collected by the lorry. We thought we saw some of his shopping roll down the hill, running to help it soon became clear that what had rolled down the hill was the poor chaps decapitated head.

The lorry had now stopped without causing further damage, there was clearly nothing anyone could do other than call the emergency services, somebody put a cardboard box over the man’s head and then of course the emergency services took over, closed the road, took statements from us, l think we then went to the pub.

I do remember, that for days afterwards you could still see the blood stains in the frozen snow all the way down the hill.

 

[Buckman]

Not 1982, but 1993. We had arrived from the tropics and I had never encountered snow or temperatures below 6C. In Dec 1993 I encountered black ice for the first time. Having never experienced it I initially thought that the steering had packed up on the car as it went straight when I was supposed to be turning. Later that evening going to pick up OH it start snowing. I had never driven in snow so to me it was a very worrying time going to her work and back as you had to judge where you thought the road was. Made it there and back without mishap.

 

[Sam Vimes]

I can remember the Big Snows of the '60s. I started work in 66 and with my trusty Triuumph Herald set off to work one winter on a journey that usually took an hour. Three hours later I arrived only to be told that we could all go home because of the bad weather - another three hours.

In the late '90s I can remember leaving Milton Keynes at about 6pm for a 1 hour journey. I got there at midnight - 4 hours actually trying to get out of MK.

Snow hardly comes to Skye and if it does it doesn't hang around long. Only twice have we ever had to turn back and mostly because of the ice on the roads.

 

[Buckman]

OH remembers big snow in about 1962 as struggled to get to school only to be sent home.

A couple of years ago here in the Midlands we had some heavy snow and it was a 12 mile drive from a rural area for OH to get to work. Surprising people who lived in the town where the gritters had been busy were "unable" to get to work even though they lived "just around the corner" from the workplace?

 

[Gafferbill]

......I remember the 1982 cold spell for the waxing of the then available diesel fuel.
Diesel engine vehicles came to a stop due to fuel starvation.
Wax globules formed in the engine fuel lines and blocked them caused by the low temperatures.
This resulted in some chaos on the roads and impacted deliveries by trucks.
Since then the diesel provided in the UK autumn/winter has had additives added to prevent the problem.

 

[Martin_E]

......I remember the 1982 cold spell for the waxing of the then available diesel fuel.
Diesel engine vehicles came to a stop due to fuel starvation.
Wax globules formed in the engine fuel lines and blocked them caused by the low temperatures.
This resulted in some chaos on the roads and impacted deliveries by trucks.
Since then the diesel provided in the UK autumn/winter has had additives added to prevent the problem.

Back in them days it wasn’t uncommon for lorry drivers to light fires under the fuel tanks/engine to get them up and running again.

 

[Dustydog]

Walking 2 miles to school and back home nearly killed us. I remember shivering all the way home.

 

[otherclive]

That cold spell even damaged my bike as there were so many icy ruts and hard deposits that the headstock cracked. I then had to walk four miles to school. But the biggest looser was my father as I couldn’t get back at lunchtime to cook his lunch.

 

[Buckman]

At present watching the Big Freeze of 1962-63. Seems to have bene worse than the '82 and makes the Beast from the East look puny in comparison to the other two.