Worst weather you remember

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussion' started by Black Dog, Jun 24, 2022.

  1. Black Dog

    Black Dog Gardener of useful things

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    Moin everyone

    With a new climate extrem record being set every other year and media calling every drought, storm or frost "once in a century" I'd like to ask especially the older forum users the following:

    What's the worst weather you can remember. Be it bone chilling frost, water up to the brim of your roof or a heat wave that ignited your garden shed.

    I'd really like to hear a few "war stories" from back in the days and if you personally think it has gotten worse over the years.

    For myself, I actually can't remember the region I live in being as dry as it is now. Back in my youth it was mostly wetlands, mud so deep it ate more than one pair of boots. Nowadays the ground is cracked and there is a fire at least once per year. Ponds dried up and even with the ground water being so high, grass is mostly brown instead of the lush green I remember from my youth.
     
  2. Michael Hewett

    Michael Hewett Total Gardener

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    The worst I remember is about 1963-ish and it snowed on a Boxing Day. We built a snowman (or should that be snowperson ?)
    It was still there at Easter time ... I don't know when Easter was that year, it may have been early but it was still a long time after Boxing Day.


    My dad was in University in the 1930s studdying geology. Their lecturer told them he'd once been to Greenland and stood on a glacier, and after a few years he went there again, but the glacier had retreated a long way back ... That was in the 1930s.
     
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    • pete

      pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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      Three times, in my lifetime, stick in my mind.
      1963, big freeze, there was another one, but shorter 1987.

      Summer 1976 and the heat.

      The so called hurricane of October 1987.

      It's strange looking back, because it's just occurred to me I've not come up with anything memorable in the last 20years or so.

      Just remembered the flooding in 2000 I think it was.
       
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      • Upsydaisy

        Upsydaisy Total Gardener

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        • Upsydaisy

          Upsydaisy Total Gardener

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          • pete

            pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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            To be honest I actually remember that really started in 1975,the summer that year was warm, and the drought was not a couple of months as it might seem, the under ground aquifers died out, and that doesn't happen over a short period of time.
            As I remember, it finished abruptly with lots of heavy rain in September, but the actual start was a bit more blurred.
             
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            • Michael Hewett

              Michael Hewett Total Gardener

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              I also remember that 1976 summer.
              My mother had a friend living on a hill farm near our village and had her water from a well (It's still the same in those hill properties, they are not connected to the mains even today)
              Anyway the well on this farm had run dry so my mother's farmer friend used to come to our house twice a day with a tractor pulling a trailer full of milk churns.
              We'd fill the churns with water and she'd take them back for the cows who had to drink so many gallons every day.
              That went on for several weeks, and the reservoir up in the mountains had almost run dry.
               
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              • pete

                pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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                Before my time, but apparently 1947 was another humdinger of a winter that just went on and on.
                 
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                • Victoria

                  Victoria Lover of Exotic Flora

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                  In the UK I remember 1962/63 Winter as it was my last year of School and had to walk to school in knee-high snow.

                  In August 1963 I moved to Alabama US and it was 100F and I thought I would die!

                  I have lived through many tornados in Alabama, frightening things. The worst was in April 1974 when an F5 struck Huntsville where we lived and 16 died. This is where T'other Half worked at Parkway City Mall which was totally destroyed and had to be levelled. Luckily it happened in the early morning hours.

                  [​IMG]
                   
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                  • Michael Hewett

                    Michael Hewett Total Gardener

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                    My mother used to say about that too ... her and my dad had got married and went to London by train on their honeymoon, but the tracks were blocked with snow so they came home.
                    They never got their honeymoon, not even a 'second' one (which would actually have been their first anyway :heehee:)
                     
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                    • JWK

                      JWK Gardener Staff Member

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                      Our little village in Yorkshire was cut off for two weeks in the winter of 63. I remember making igloos by burrowing into the snow drifts in the road that were as high as hedges. My Dad eventually cleared the 2 mile road to the nearest town with his tractor. I think it would be a major catastrophe if anywhere was cut off for over 2 weeks in the uk these days. We just made do with what we had, no incoming supplies. There were more remote villages in the wolds that took even longer to reach.
                       
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                      • pete

                        pete Growing a bit of this and a bit of that....

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                        The reason that stands out in my mind is because my parents also got married that year and they had the wedding photos taken in mid April with snow piled all around.

                        In January 1987 we had a two day blizzard that cut off a lot of the villages around here. Drifts were so deep that you could just about see the tops of the road signs in places.
                        I remember helicopters dropping off supplies in some cut off places that were running out.
                        I also remember walking 3 miles to work and 3 miles back each day in it for over a week. The temperatures were well below zero for some time.
                         
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                        • shiney

                          shiney President, Grumpy Old Men's Club Staff Member

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                          I remember all those clearly plus:

                          1947 with very heavy snow and blizzards in London caused a lot of disruption. We were banned from playing on the bomb sites (a favourite place to play) as they were covered in snow and and too dangerous with all the broken walls and debris. We also had problems with heating the house as there was a shortage of coal exacerbated by the mines having to shut for a while and the roads not suitable for transporting it. This was on top of the problems of food rationing (post war) being made worse by the weather.

                          Very heavy snow Feb/March 1952 that caused great disruption in London where I was living,

                          and then in that summer I was at Lynmouth, Devon when they had the disastrous floods where about 40 people died and thousands homeless. As visitors, on holiday, we were all told to go home (who would want to stay there anyway :dunno:).

                          That wasn't the only problems in 1952 as in the winter, Dec - Jan 1953, we had the awful London fog that eventually brought about the Clean Air Act (thousands died from the fog). We couldn't see our feet when walking and I remember the busses being led back to the bus garage, a mile away from us, where they had the conductor leading the driver with a burning brand in his hand.

                          The big freeze of 1963 started with snowfall in December. I sailed out of Southampton (for South Africa) on the 10th and the snow had just started falling there. By the end of the month crossings across the English Channel had been cancelled and the heavy snow and deep freeze led to big problems. The Thames estuary froze over in places but by the time I returned towards the end of January there was a slight thaw. I sailed off again in Feb and the snow and freeze restarted in earnest and some of my friends said they were able to skate on the Thames in London. It didn't really clear until the end of May.


                          In the early 70's we had heavy snowfalls with the winds making things more difficult by driving snowdrifts across the road. One Sunday we went to visit my sister two miles away and the weather was good. It started snowing heavily about 4 p.m. and at 7 p.m. we decided we had better go - too late! We got to within 1/4 mile of home and had to abandon the car because of snow drifts. The snow was about 3ft deep by then and it took us half an hour to struggle through to home. The next morning I went out in beautiful sunshine, long wellies and spade over my shoulder so I could dig out my car. Total waste of time as the road was impassable. The farmer spotted me and said he would sort it out for me. He came out with his tractor with a sugar beet shovel on it and cleared around my car (I had to do the last bit) and then cleared up to our house. I thanked him for it but he said he was going to clear to the main road as he wanted his staff to get to work :heehee:. The council used to take about a week to get round to doing our road. He got into trouble with the union as they complained he had taken overtime away from them. I can't put his response on here! :roflol:

                          The 1987 October hurricane was fascinating to watch but scary. It created more devastation than normal because the trees were still in leaf and caught the wind. I think the news said that over 15 million trees came down in the wind. I was sitting in our lounge at 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., feet up and cuppa in hand (no electricity but our gas cooker worked), watching the trees bend in the wind. I watched a 60ft Silver Birch tree in our garden gradually come out of the ground as the roots were slowly ripped from the ground. It must have taken a good five minutes from starting to lean badly to actually hitting the ground. It missed our greenhouse by less than a foot! It was six weeks before the tree surgeons could get here to cut it up. They had much more urgent work to do. Our road was closed for two weeks before they could clear the fallen trees. I had to walk two miles each day to where one of my staff could pick me up to take me to work each day.
                           
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                          • JWK

                            JWK Gardener Staff Member

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                            Photo from that bad winter in 63, my Dad spent most of his time rescuing our sheep, if they weren't pulled out they would have died. We had a flock of a few hundred and when the lambing season came he had his work cut out:
                            Sheepinsnow 001.jpg
                             
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                            • Jocko

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                              At 14 at the time I don't remember 1963 being all that bad, staying as I did on the south coast of Fife.
                              I do remember a spell in the late 80s when we had about 10 days of hard freezing fog. I had a single-skin soft-top car and every time I went over a bump the accumulated ice on the inside of the roof came down like a blizzard. And you couldn't put the heater on or it rained!
                               
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