Local Forecasts, History & Records
Ice and Snow in Durham UK
The Durham area of North East of England was taken a little by surprise on Friday morning, the 8th January 2021. An area of rain had approached from the North West and turned to snow after midnight. Some places received 8-10 hours of continuous snow. Depth increased dramatically with altitude. In Durham City we had only 2-3 inches of snow, but …
Two amazing photos of the frozen River Wear in Durham. The first, credited to Matthew Avery and Helen Avery is of the Cathedral across the frozen river. Although Helen originally thought it was from 1983, it’s almost certainly from a year earlier in the winter of 1981/82. December 1981 and the first half of January 1982 were very severe, particularly …
Liam Dutton’s 10 snowiest places in the UK. Where are the 10 snowiest places in the UK? Each winter, there is often much speculation as to how much snow will fall in the UK. The prospect of snow in the forecast generates a lot of talk and excitement about the weather. Social media becomes a frenzy of snow pictures with …
During the winter of 1983-84, there was a very snowy cold spell in the last week of January 1984. Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England were affected. Here’s a nice couple of black and white photos of the Fulling Mill and Cathedral taken by Craig Oliphant, who has very kindly given his permission to publish. Ice is just …
Snowfall, Winter 2019-20 Better late than never Well, after a winter composed almost entirely of wind, rain and relatively mild temperatures, the first snow arrived in Durham five days before the end of February. Amounts aren’t huge (2-3”), but at least it stopped the winter from being thrown on the ‘No snow’ pile. It’s melted rapidly though after turning to …
February 1986 (who remembers that one then?) It was one of the coldest Februaries ever recorded in modern times. Trevor Harley, in his famous weather summaries pages, describes February 1986 like this: February 1986. Extremely cold (-1.1C CET), with frequent light snowfalls. The second coldest February of the 20th century (after February 1947), and fourth coldest month of the twentieth …
The harsh realities of the brutal winter of 1946-47 are chronicled here in a writeup of The Time Traveller clipped from the Northern Echo some time in the 1980s The churches worry about war-devastated Germany, but most people say that Britain has enough to do in feeding herself. Rationing is worse than in the war – dwindling allowances of basic …
I was rooting about in the loft the other day and came across an old logbook of mine from when I lived in Ferryhill. It covered the period of late 1990 and early 1991. Immediately I took interest because there was a memorable period of heavy snowfall in February 1991. What is striking was that snow was 15” deep on …
The northern part of the county saw it’s first real snow of the winter on 12th December. It was confined to high levels, but gave a good covering in the high Pennines. Here’s a photo from twitter from the top of Killhope in the County Durham Pennines. More photos from a friend of mine Barry Wilkinson who went skiing in …
Some nine years ago, we were in the grip of one of the most severe spells of weather to occur in the month of December for over 100 years. Around Durham, the snowfall in December 2010 was very deep. Here’s a selection of local photos taken by Gary Tidbury of the conditions around Framwellgate Moor in Durham.
A good mate of mine just posted these extraordinary photos on Facebook of an ‘Ice Spike’. “This morning I had never heard of an ice spike and if I had ever seen one, would have had no idea what it was and shrugged it off as something strange. A post on another site had a photo of one happening in …
When December 2010 came along and hit us square between the eyes, it was a complete shock to the system. There had been no below freezing December in the UK (average below 0.0 degC) since 1890. That’s 120 years. These are temperatures from the CET series (Central England Temperature). The last time the temperature averaged below zero was in February …