User:Lacunae/24

Winter of 1978-79 in Europe/UK

'''Perhaps the last example of a really landmark awful winter was the December of 1978 and early months of 1979. Memorable as the Winter of discontent in the UK for socioeconomic and political reasons it was also the coldest winter since the famous 'big freeze' of Winter 1962-63.'''

Over Great Britain as a whole there were more days of snow or sleet falling than in the previous season, especially at lower altitudes, and about twice the 1941-70 average. '''Indeed the frequency of snow generally had not previously been exceeded since 1969/70, and in some places since 1950/51. Among the regions most particularly affected by the snow were southern Scotland, northern England and Wales. More snow or sleet fell in May than for many years, which prolonged the season. Snow cover was everywhere more frequent than last season and overall was more than twice the 1941-70 average.''' In many places this was the snowiest winter season since 1962/63, and some places in Wales and the south Pennines had a longer period of snow cover than for at least the past 30 seasons.

Labour government appointed Denis Howell as Minister for snow. jusy (however long) after he was appointed minister for drought during 1976.

November
'''The run up to 1978 had, rather like this year, been mild and dry in November - up until around the 24th of the month. It was then that a cold north westerly weather pattern hit the UK, as the low pressure front progressed north the winds changed bringing a cold wind that brought with it snow showers and blizzards. As 1979 began the country was engulfed by blizzards and deep snow. Despite its massive impact on the UK the weather system of 1978-1979 still only wins a mid-table 6th place in our worst winters of all time list.'''

December
https://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/Images/ImageLibrary/DAT_3706568.html http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/69329918-31-decembre-1978-une-st-sylvestre-memorable

January
https://xmetman.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-coldest-new-years-in-central-england/ '''but a great blizzard hit the south on New Year's Eve, bringing Heathrow airport to a standstill for several days. January's temperature averaged -0.4C, as continuous frosts and snowfalls continued.'''

Seaman, N. L., H. Otten, and R. A. Anthes. "A rapidly developing polar low in the North Sea on January 2nd, 1979." Preprint Volume, First Intern. Conference on Meteorology and Air/Sea Interaction of the Coastal Zone, The I-Lague, Netherlands. 1982.

The weather turned very cold in the early months of 1979 with blizzards and deep snow, the coldest since 1962–63.

2 January snow covering the whole of Britain for the first time since 1963. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/k/m/Jan1979.pdf
 * http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/k/f/Dec1978.pdf

'''The CET in January 1987 was 0.8c (33f). The month started off as normal, but within a week virtually the whole country was covered in snow with temperatures below zero.'''

13 January 1979	Carnwath West Scotland -24.6 °C, 4th coldest UK temp 1961-2012.

February
11 feb ireland https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0118/1024048-snowbound-citizens/

12 february 1979 an area of high pressure began to strengthen over northern and central Sweden, at the same time an area of low pressure developed over Central europe. In this case, a northerly wind rose to the easternmost Sweden, which was fresh or hard for almost six days. Vinden orsakade kraftigt snödrev i Skåne och kulminerade den 15 februari med storm på sydkusten. https://www.smhi.se/kunskapsbanken/meteorologi/snoovadret-i-skane-13-18-februari-1979-1.132914?l=null

'''A severe storm hit the coast at Portland on 13 February 1979. At high tide, freak waves between 12m and 18m high battered houses 180m or more from the shore, destroying homes and rendering others uninhabitable. Even lorries were swept down the road. The Royal Naval helicopter base was flooded, the principal gas main was ruptured, and the only road from the Isle of Portland to the mainland was rendered impassable.'''

15 feb cold pool http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wea.666/epdf

'''February 1978. A combination of meteorological circumstances meant a series of depressions, carrying plentiful moisture-laden air which encountered bitterly cold easterly winds. It had originated in Arctic Russia, and deposited a phenomenal amount of snow across the county, bringing it to a standstill. Considerable snowfall occurred on February 15 and 16, but the real blizzard began on February 18 and continued for about 30 hours.'''

'''In Dorset Some 46cm of snow fell, but the high winds created drifts of over 9m in places. All minor roads and nearly all major roads and railway lines were blocked. Twenty-five thousand houses were without electricity, 100,000 premises without water, and 10,000 households and businesses were without telephones. Although the weather conditions eased almost immediately, some people were stranded for days, and even a week later many services were still disrupted.'''

March

 * http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/k/q/Feb1979.pdf *http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/l/5/Mar1979.pdf and described as the worst conditions since then.-http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1979/01/01/page/35/article/snow-paralyzes-europe-8-die-thousands-stranded

9Weather – January 2011, Vol. 66, No. 1 The UK winter of 2009/2010 winters of the last 100 years. However, over England and Wales, it was nowhere near as severe as 1947 (in terms of the quantity of snow) or 1963 and 1979 (in terms of the persistence of lying snow). The most severe conditions of the winter were in northern areas, particularly Highland Scotland which saw prolonged, deep lying snow. Across Scotland and Northern Ireland winter 2010 was comparable to, or in some areas even more severe than, these earlier winters.An analysis of the rarity of winter 2010, based on historical records, may need to take into account the changing climate. With global warming, the probability of cold winters such as 2010 may be expected to decrease. Recent research taking into account this warming trend suggests a return period for the winter 2010 tempera-ture of around 100 years in Scotland (van Oldenborgh, 2010). For snow cover, it is not yet possible to adjust return periods to take global warming into account: the unad-justed value for Scotland is estimated to be 20 to 50 years. Other parts of northern Europe also expe-rienced a severe winter 2010. For example, countries bordering the Baltic saw large negative temperature anomalies during January and February. In Ireland, it was the coldest winter since 1963, with heavy snow-falls in late December and mid-January. In contrast, with the polar jet stream displaced southwards, parts of southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean were exceptionally warm and wet. Gibraltar had its wettest win-ter on record with 1379mm of rainfall, easily resulted in a reported level depth of 1.6m at Tredegar in south Wales. Even so, while the duration of snow lying in 1963 was greater than in 1947, the overall quantity of snow has been judged to be less. In contrast to winter 1947, winter 1963 was also sunnier than average, particularly in western areas, which to some extent mitigated the cold easterly winds.?ref?

During the winter of 1979, very cold con-ditions set in towards the end of December 1978 (Burt, 1980). The snow that fell after Christmas persisted and was added to throughout January and February, particu-larly in upland areas of the north. Winter 1979 also saw some very low temperatures, with –24.6°C at Carnwath (Lanarkshire) on 13 January, the lowest temperature recorded anywhere in the UK since February 1955. Over England and Wales, January 1979 is ranked third coldest in the last 100 years, with only 1940 and 1963 colder. However, winter 1979 was noteworthy neither for the degree of cold (surpassed in 1963) nor the snow depths (surpassed in 1947) but for the number of days with snow cover. Upland areas experienced over 50 days with lying snow as did some areas in the Midlands and eastern England. For example, in the Pennines, Great Dun Fell (847m) reported snow lying continuously from the last week of November until the first week of May.

Europe
'''1978-9 Severest winter and lowest temperature recorded in 200 yrs in parts of northern Europe, and perhaps in the Moscow region. Snowfalls also extreme in parts of northern Europe.''' Lamb, http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/11646/#more-11646 Southern Swedish region of Skåne declared a "catastrophe area", https://www.smhi.se/bloggar/vaderleken-2-3336/nyaret-1978-79-ett-iskallt-jubileum-1.143218 West Germany troops help rural communities with generators.


 * https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiver_1978-1979_en_Europe
 * https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneekatastrophe_in_Norddeutschland_1978
 * https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_van_1978-1979 https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneeuwstorm_van_14_februari_1979


 * http://www.saevert.de/winter7879.htm
 * http://galleri.tv2.dk/Vejret/10278928/0/
 * http://vejret.tv2.dk/artikel/id-1260925:snestormen-197879.html
 * http://vejret.tv2.dk/artikel/id-10295180:isvinter-i-70erne.html
 * http://www.b.dk/danmark/dengang-der-var-snestorme-til
 * http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/historie/det-store-himmelske-slagsm%C3%A5l

One of the worst snow storms of the century struck the northern half of the Netherlands in mid-February 1979. The storm began on the 14th and the north of the country had about 90 hours heavy snow drift. The wind gusts reached at speeds of 100 kilometers per hour and the snow dunes heights of 3 to 6 meters. Parts of the country over the line Harderwijk Amsterdam were cut off from the outside world. Earlier that winter, on New Year's Eve 1978 was mainly the south of the country hit by a snowstorm at extremely low temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees below zero.

http://vejret.tv2.dk/2015-12-28-tema-aarhundredets-snestorm-i-197879 http://vejret.tv2.dk/2015-12-29-aarhundredets-snestorm-197879-i-tal http://vejret.tv2.dk/2015-12-28-aarhundredets-snestorm-i-197879-se-billederne-foer-og-efter http://vejret.tv2.dk/2015-12-28-bag-om-aarhundredets-snestorm-197879

In Moscow, the temperature was -4? ° C, which surpassed the record of 1900. -47 Sweden

SSW
Sudden stratospheric warming polar vortex splitting type of event, with the vortex split by February 1979 with one centre over north america and another over eurasian russia.
 * Jan Feb 1979 Major SSW in Northern hemisphere- http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00879931#page-1
 * http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07055900.1981.9649110#.VIIo_s6sW08 - Behaviour, of stratospheric NO2 during stratospheric warming of January‐February 1979

Elsewhere
Winter 1978/79 also saw some notable events in northern hemisphere winter...

North America severe winter Chicago_Blizzard_of_1979 13-14 Jan 1979
 * http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dvn/?n=01011979_brutalwinter
 * http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0493%281979%29107<0499%3AWACOJ>2.0.CO%3B2 - Weather and circulation of January 1979, widespread record cold with heavy snowfall in the Midwest.

'''In the United States, Wisconsin’s capital set a new record for snowfall, with more than 196.3 cm (77.3 inches) of snow so far this winter. The old record was broken when 46 mm (1.8 inches) of snow fell overnight on February 11 2008. The previous record was set during the winter of 1978/1979, when 194.6 cm (76.6 inches) of snow fell.'''http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/extreme-winter.html

Africa On 18 February 1979, snow fell in several places in southern Algeria, including a half-hour snowstorm that stopped traffic in Ghardaïa, and was reported as being "for the first time in living memory". The snow, however, was gone within hours.

- http://phys.org/news/2015-01-ocean-key-recurring-extreme-winters.html 1978/79 '''we suggest that this persistence is linked to re-emergence of sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic for the events of 1969/70 and 2009/10. The events of 1978/79 do not exhibit re-emergence, indicating that the atmospheric memory for this pair of events originates elsewhere.'''- http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2274-6


 * German
 * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Winter_1978-1979_in_Germany?uselang=de
 * French
 * Dutch

Winter of 1939-40
winter 1939-40 coldest in 100 years

El Niño event started in autumn 1939, reached full strength in January 1940 and lasted, with varying intensity, until spring 1942,” they actually paid little attention to the possibility that an El Niño culminated already in summer 1939-Brönnimann Nature 2004

Great Rain Autumn 1939. '''200% more than average in September, 300% more in October and 200% more again in November. In some  of  the  regions  of  Western,  Central  and  Southern  Germany,  measured rainfall was twice, in some cases three and a half times as much as usual: for example, Augs-burg  366%,  Nördlingen  362%,  Kaiserslautern  336%,  Würzburg  316%.Three  times  the  nor-mal amount also fell in the southeast of England in October. Greenwich had seen this type of rainfall only in 1888 and 1840. This was also the case for Camden Square in London, where it rained 50 hours longer than the statistical average. In Freiburg im Breisgau, it rained on 30 of 31 days  in  October,  other  locations  near  the  battle-ready  Maginot/Westwall  line had 24 days of rain.'''

The prevailing wind from the north-east quadrant only in the  years  1814,  1841  and  the  winter  of  1939/40.-http://www.1ocean-1climate.com/FIGURE_Engl1939_Aug14.pdf

87 ws pike meteo mag