The Big freeze of 63

Missed that one shiney as I was born the year after but Sis was born that year and she probably didn't remember ... we (no, she) was in Pontypridd then ...

 

I remember the pond up in the field had frozen solid and overflowed with ice. We had a great time playing on it until my older sister fell over and hurt her front teeth.

We went to the village school about a mile and a half away, down a high-hedged lane and across the moor. My sister and I, (about 9, I was) were sent off to plough our way through virgin snowdrifts carved into fantastic shapes towering over my head. I'm sure I must have got snow in my wellies that day!

In 1947 my dad walked 5 miles to the nearest village over the hedgetops to get bread, or so family lore has it.

I remember more about winters in the late 60s/early 70s which produced a lot of snow in West Wales. The school buses were always being called for early and it still seemed like a great laugh to roll about in the snow and go home with sopping wet gloves.

 

I watched the program too, amazing what people went through that year

I take it the high altitude winds they referred to are what we now know as the jet stream?

Question is, how much of the weather patterns from 1963 are being repeated now?

We've had 2 winters of unusually cold weather, we now know that was partially due to the north atlantic drift diverting round the other side of Greenland (not sure if that was known about in 63)

 

Sure I've posted this pic before from '63 but here it is again .The lane to the farm where I grew up .

 

Cor

 

I think this just proves what a load of old pony climate change is.

If we got another winter like that these days, the "experts" would be out there making all kinds of fantastic claims along the lines of, "we are going to get winters like this all the time now", "Mini Ice Age", etc.
Since then we have had very mild winters, some fairly cold winters, very hot summers and really bad summers.

Why does everyone think there has to be a pattern to the weather?
As far as I can see it's totally random.

 

I was nine at that time and was living eight miles outside Southend in Essex. I can remember my dad taking my brothers and I down to the estuary at Southend to look at the sea as it had frozen over. I can still picture it now, so strange as it had frozen in ripples.

 

Just finished watching it.

I honestly couldn't think what this country would do if it was happen again.
Made me laugh the woman walking down the street in tights and open shoes!


As pete says patterns in the weather over a period of time

 

Well, when records of heat/cold/wet etc get smashed year on year then it's worth paying attention. However, any record will be smashed sooner or later and we only have firm records going back 100 years or so, which is a mere blink of an eye in climatic terms.

It will, in all probability, appear to be random if we are just looking at our own experience drawn from our own short life spans. But trends which continue for a century or several must mean something. But we'll be too frazzled up to notice by that time.

 

I was also and ERK Naval rating
We had to dig busses out and anything else sheep, cows, whatever
I was in Petersfield about twenty miles from the sea

Ended up with Pneumonia, and have had chest complaints since

Jack McH

 

What trends would they be I wonder?

Its only in my life time that we've started to see the emergence of low cost high precision instruments. 100 years ago, I very much doubt that there were many thermometers around that could measure ambient air temperature to a precision of 0.01'C. Anything less precise than that just has too high a tolerance to be useful when the temperature trend we're talking about is only something like 0.2'C.

Then there's the consideration of where the measuring instruments are placed. We all know about local microclimates. Have the readings always been taken from the same places? Even if they were, urbanisation affects temperature on a local level.

 

The trends we'll notice after a 100 years of using low cost high precision instruments!

Good point. But there must be fairly consistent records in existence of temperatures being taken in the same place year after year, possibly with the same instrument.

There'll probably be a lot of amateur-collected data as well, for what it's worth. My dad was obsessed with weather and collected data and wrote it in his diary every day for about 40 years.

 

I've just finished watching The Day After Tomorrow.