Weather stories from the past - do you know any?

[brooksy]

jan 1987 saw the lowest day time temp ever recorded, the temp on the 7th till the 10th never got above minus 6 deg c and on one day stayed at minus 8. altho 1963 and 1947 were longer and more severe 87 day time temp may never be beaten.

[djelibeybi]

I vividly recall storms here in Sheffield being alot more dramatic than the ones in Hampshire. I assume it's because of the topography.

 

On more than occasion in the 1970's, I remember sitting in the living room on Lowedges estate just after midday, and all of a sudden, it'd start getting dark. It would get so dark that we couldn't see across the room and we had to put the lights on.

 

It was an almighty thunderstorm, with very heavy cloudbursts of rain and hail which turned the streets and pavements into fast flowing rivers, and back gardens into lakes. It felt each time that the storm passed directly over head, with the crashes of thunder coinciding with the lightning and so loud that you couldn't hear what the person sat next to you was saying. The windows would actually buzz with the volume, and the floorboards would vibrate.

 

Those storms were terrifying, and I've never experienced any as extreme (except the "hurricane" of 1987 in Hampshire, but that was wind, not what I'd class as a storm per se).

 

Approximately the summer of 2004, I witnessed a funnel cloud forming as it passed over Dronfield from Holmesfield direction. I don't believed it touched down (which would have caused horrific damage), but it was both fascinating and chilling to watch.

[Gangan]

The Big Freeze February 1963.

 

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u179/hunnybunch37/23Feb17th1963TheBigFreeze.jpg

 

Our daughter was 10 weeks old here.

[tatty dumps]

During one bad bout of smog I was on the buses. We were coming from Shiregreen and halfway between the bottom of Bellhouse Road and Barnsley Road we couldn't see but a few inches in front of us. I, the conductor, had to walk in front of the bus until we reached higher ground and it had lifted a bit. I thank God I had a good bus driver, Alex Jaffrays, for at times I could feel the bus touching the back of me.

[Grandad.Malky]

Its interesting reading about adverse weather, I remember the summer of 76 as it was the year I left school but isn’t it strange that al this happened before anybody had even thought about Global Warming.

 

[Allen]

In the gale of '62 I was on the top floor of Regent Court flats. Apparently they swayed violently in the wind (designed to do so).

I slept through it, lol.

 

I was only 11, but remember seeing the devastation the following day. My uncles car was flattened by a falling tree.

[tatty dumps]

In the gale of '62 I was on the top floor of Regent Court flats. Apparently they swayed violently in the wind (designed to do so).

I slept through it, lol.

 

I was only 11, but remember seeing the devastation the following day. My uncles car was flattened by a falling tree.

 

I was catching the bus to go to work about 5.30 in the morning. I was having to cling to the bus stop, the wind was so strong and there was debris flying about all over the place. I decided it was a bit stupid to stand there and went back home.

[Plain Talker]

I've already related, elsewhere on here, the story of the gale of 62, where my uncle wore his motorbike-helmet to go outside to the lavatory across the yard,, at my grandparents' home in attercliffe. He was mocked, and jeered at, but the mocking stopped when he came back in, as white as a sheet, with a slate, from the roof, embedded into the helmet.

 

djelibabi, I wonder if that storm you are mentioning from the 70s was the same one that damaged my family's littel terraced house in sharrow? My sister and I were sat in our doorway, watching this wonderful storm, in the summer of about 1975, and my mother gave a start at a particularly massive bang from the thunder and lightning. she made me go into the living room to unplug the TV.

 

when I got to the tv, i found the floor was sodden, absolutely drenched, when I looked up, I saw the bay-window in the living room had been struck by the lightning, and had come-away from the wall, letting the rain in. that was scary.

[tatty dumps]

I was working at Smiths dry cleaners in the summer of '76. It was normally a very hot place to work in but this day we had to switch all the machines off it was too hot to work. The operaters were wearing just an overall with nothing underneath and it was still unbearable.

[djelibeybi]

Plain Talker

 

It could well have been! I just have vivid recollections of a fight between me, my nan and her lightweight alsation all trying to hide under the dining table! At the time, I was terrified of thunder storms, but now I'm fascinated by positive streamers, stepped leaders etc etc.

 

In fact, once thunder storm within the past 3 years springs to mind.....

 

We have a shelter built over our rear patio, and during one storm, I was stood on the patio in bare feet (the ground was dry) watching the storm, and I swear I saw a positive streamer go up from a bush in our backgarden not 10 feet away from me, and the lightning touched down in a garden across the back of ours. I felt my feet tingling, and decided discretion was the better part of valour, and ended up sat cross legged just inside the back door!

 

For those who don't know, a positive streamer is what objects on the ground send up when the lightning's looking for a way to connect from the clouds (that's the stepped leader). Luckily the one in our garden didn't connect, or I may have been killed!

 

I vividly recall the summer of 76.....being bitten to shreds by ladybirds cos their food supply (aphids) had exploded that summer. I still recall seeing the ruins of Derwent village exposed in Ladybower reservoir too (but that's covered in another thread somewhere on here).