The bitter winter of 1962/63Stephen Burt FRMetS

Imperial College, London16 March 2013

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'Central England' winter mean temperatures (DJF, °C)1660-2013

The bitter winter of 1962/63

1962/63-0.3 °C

1739/40-0.4 °C

1683/84-1.2 °C

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=winter+1962&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=9EZ5Y5HTMFMtpM&tbnid=Dm7r3w6AoYhLuM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://favim.com/image/109541/&ei=gm8_Ubq6BrGz0QWo5IGgCw&bvm=bv.43287494,d.ZWU&psig=AFQjCNGQZA1PFA-rJ6OihAglSf9Y08TMWA&ust=1363198192866792

The bitter winter of 1962/63

Frequent heavy snowfalls, blowing snow/deep drifts, persistent snow cover

Notable for persistence of cold rather than absolute severity

• Timeline of the winter

• Chronology of the main events

• Why was the winter of 1962/63 so cold?

• Assessment of rarity

• Could such a winter ever happen again?

Weather in Reading, winter 1962/63

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1 Dec 1962 15 Dec 1962 29 Dec 1962 12 Jan 1963 26 Jan 1963 9 Feb 1963 23 Feb 1963 9 Mar 1963

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1 Dec 1962 15 Dec 196229 Dec 1962 12 Jan 1963 26 Jan 1963 9 Feb 1963 23 Feb 1963 9 Mar 1963

Maximum and minimum air temperatures (°C)

0900 snow depth (cm)

Source: UoR historical climatological database

1908-2012, Roger Brugge

December January February March

Parameter Dec 1962 Jan 1963 Feb 1963 Winter 62/63 Dec 2010Mean temperature °C 1.9 -2.0 0.1 0.0 0.7

Anomaly -3.6 -7.3 -5.2 -5.4 -3.9Mean max temp °C 4.8 0.4 2.6 2.6 3.5

Anomaly -3.5 -7.7 -5.8 -5.7 -4.0Mean min temp °C -0.9 -4.4 -2.4 -2.6 -2.1

Anomaly -3.0 -6.9 -4.7 -5.1 -3.7Lowest max °C -2.3 -5.6 -1.7 -5.6 -0.9Date 6 24 2 24 January 6Lowest min °C -7.2 -12.5 -6.7 -12.5 -9.4Date 26 23 25 23 January 20

Air frosts 17 27 24 68 24

Ice days 4 12 2 18 2Snow or sleet 7 15 16 38 12Snow lying 6 31 17 54 12Max depth cm 22 31 13 31 6Date 31 3 2, 3 3 January 21

Reading, winter 1962/63Source: UoR historical climatological database

Anomalies wrt current Whiteknights site 1981-2010 means, adjusted for 1963 Town Centre site

December 1962

• Very cold and foggy first week– Last of the ‘old style’

London smogs4-6 December

– Dense fog in Reading 3-8 December: visibility 15 m at 0900 on 3rd

• Milder, unsettled mid-month, colder from 21st/22nd

• Snow in north from 25th, south 26th

The winter begins ...

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Surface charts0600 GMT20-24 December 1962(From Clarke, 1964)

Late December to end-January

• Coldest Christmas London area since 1897

• Blizzards SW England and Channel coast 29 Dec and 3 Jan– Tredegar, S Wales (313 m) 81 cm snow depth 1 Jan, drifts 5-8 m– Many places SE England 30 cm snow depth around New Year

› Reading 31 cm 3 Jan, highest on record 1950 to date

• Coldest period 12-24 January– Maximum temperatures widely < 0 °C 17-25 January– Coldest day below -5 °C in many places

› 12 January Braemar maximum -11.7 °C, Balmoral -10.0 °C

› 23 January Hempsted (Glos) maximum -9.4 °C, Ross-on-Wye -8.4 °C

– Coldest nights› 18 January Braemar min -22.2 °C, the winter’s lowest

› 23 January Stanstead Abbotts (Herts) -20.6 °C, lowest in England/Wales

Source: Met Office Daily Weather Report – from the late Mike Tullett’s sitehttp://www.mikett.plus.com/winter-62-63-maps/december/index1.htm © Crown Copyright

23 January 1963at 0600z

Earth temperatures at Reading, 1962/63

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Mean air temperatureEarth 5 cm depthEarth 10 cmEarth 20 cmEarth 30 cmEarth 60 cmEarth 120 cm

°C

Hurst and Lenz, 1964

January mean MSLP

Source: Met Office Monthly Weather Report.

© Crown Copyright

February – March 1963

Early February: entire country covered in deep snow

• Central and southern England 15-25 cm– N England > 30 cm: Spadeadam, Cumbria 63 cm 7th, 8th:

Kielder Castle 56 cm 14th

• SW England and S Wales > 30 cm, blizzard 4-5 February– Tredegar, Monmouth 165 cm 7th, 8th

• Lowest February temperatures– Braemar min -18.9 °C on 18th, Corbridge, North’land -18.3 °C on 25th

– Lauder, Berwicks. -18.9 °C, Kielder Castle -18.3 °C 26th

• Rapid rise in temperatures after first week March– Bellingham, Northumberland 76 cm snow depth 1 March– Kielder Castle min -15.0 °C 1, 3, 4 March: Braemar -15.6 °C 2 March

Why was the winter so cold?

Mean MSLP December 1962 – February 1963

MSLP anomalyDecember 1962 – February 1963

PaPa

Source: NOAA ESRL 20thC reanalysis dataset

The North Atlantic Oscillation 1900-2012 (DJF)

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NAO 1900-2012

1962/63

After Hurrell 2012

Temperature anomalies – northern Hemisphere

• Very cold over NW Europe (anomalies below -5 degC)

• Very mild over Greenland and northern Canada (+5 degC)

Courtesy John Kennedy, Met Office Hadley Centre

MSLP and rainfall anomalies, NW Europe

Seasonal anomalies for winter (DJF) 1962/63

Lines: Sea level pressure (hPa) from NCAR/NCEP reanalyses. Thick line is 1 SD above 1961-90 mean

Shading: percentage of accumulated seasonal precipitation compared with the 1951–2000 climatology from the seasonal GPCC precipitation data

Courtesy of Ricardo Trigo and David Barriopedro, Univ. Lisbon

Precipitation anomalies – northern Hemisphere

Courtesy Peter Bissolli, DWD

The rarity of the winter

Ranked CET coldest Top 10 months December, January, February and Winter 1659-2013

Rank December January February Winter1 - 0.8 1890 - 3.1 1795 - 1.9 1947 - 1.2 16842 - 0.7 2010 - 3.0 1684 - 1.8 1895 - 0.4 17403 - 0.5 1676 - 2.9 1814 - 1.7 1855 -0.3 19634 - 0.3 1788 - 2.8 1740 - 1.6 1740 0.4 18145 - 0.3 1796 -2.1 1963 - 1.1 1986 0.5 1795

6 - 0.3 1878 - 2.0 1716 - 1.0 1684 0.7 16957 - 0.2 1874 - 1.6 1776 -0.7 1963 0.7 1879

8 0.3 1784 - 1.5 1709 - 0.2 1956 0.8 17169 0.3 1981 - 1.5 1838 0.0 1692 1.0 167910 0.4 1844 - 1.5 1881 0.1 1942 1.0 1681

Could such a winter ever happen again?

“The 1963 winter is well within the population of other cold winters that have been experienced in this country ... It is not necessary therefore to seek some very special cause in order to explain it.”– H.C. Shellard, Meteorological Magazine, 1968

“The winter of 2010/11 was a rare weather event, even in the context of the 352 years of the Central England temperature record. Yet while the odds of such an event have lengthened as a result of human influence on climate, such unlikely events can still happen, as the winter of 2010/11 demonstrated.”– Nikolaos Christidis and Peter Stott, Bulletin of the American Meteorological

Society, July 2012

The rarity of the winter

Ranked CET coldest Top 10 months December, January, February and Winter 1659-2013

Rank December January February Winter1 - 0.8 1890 - 3.1 1795 - 1.9 1947 - 1.2 16842 -0.7 2010 - 3.0 1684 - 1.8 1895 - 0.4 17403 - 0.5 1676 - 2.9 1814 - 1.7 1855 -0.3 19634 - 0.3 1788 - 2.8 1740 - 1.6 1740 0.4 18145 - 0.3 1796 -2.1 1963 -1.1 1986 0.5 1795

6 - 0.3 1878 - 2.0 1716 - 1.0 1684 0.7 16957 - 0.2 1874 - 1.6 1776 -0.7 1963 0.7 1879

8 0.3 1784 - 1.5 1709 - 0.2 1956 0.8 17169 0.3 1981 - 1.5 1838 0.0 1692 1.0 167910 0.4 1844 - 1.5 1881 0.1 1942 1.0 1681

Summary

• The winter of 1962/63 was the coldest winter in ‘central England’ since 1740– Since 1879 or 1895 in Scotland and Northern Ireland– Notable for persistence of cold rather than absolute lowest values– Great penetration of frost into the ground

• Several notable snowfalls late December to early February– Tredegar, Monmouth 165 cm depth on 7 and 8 February– Widespread ‘record extreme’ persistence of snow on the ground

• Anomalous easterly flow from anticyclone over Scandinavia, Icelandic low displaced west of Greenland– DJF MSLP anomaly +15 hPa Iceland, -9 hPa Portugal– NAO index -4.0, lowest on the series to that date– Very cold, dry winter NW Europe, mild and wet Greenland and N Canada

Acknowledgements, sources and referencesAnomaly charts by kind courtesy of - Ricardo Trigo and David Barriopedro, University of Lisbon- John Kennedy, Met Office Hadley Centre- Peter Bissolli, Deutscher Wetterdienst DWD (from GPCC Visualizer: http://kunden.dwd.de/GPCC/Visualizer )

CET data – monthly and seasonal means from Hadley Centre website www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ : Parker, D.E., T.P. Legg, and C.K. Folland. 1992. A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772-1991. Int. J. Clim., 12, pp 317-342 (PDF available on Hadley Centre website)

CRUTEM dataset from Jones, P. D., D. H. Lister, T. J. Osborn, C. Harpham, M. Salmon, and C. P. Morice (2012), Hemispheric and large-scale land surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2010, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D05127, doi:10.1029/2011JD017139

NAO from Hurrell, James & NCAR (2012) The Climate Data Guide: Hurrell North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index (station-based). Retrieved from http://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/guidance/hurrell-north-atlantic-oscillation-nao-index-station-based

Christidis, N and Stott, P (2012) Lengthened odds of the cold winter of 2010/11 attributable to human influence. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., 93 (7), pp 1060-1062

Clarke, PC (1964) The start of a prolonged cold spell. Weather, 19, pp 366–369Hurst, GW and Lenz, Y (1964) Earth temperature changes in Winter 1962-63. Weather, 19, pp 124-128Shellard, HC (1968) The winter of 1962-63 in the United Kingdom – A climatological survey. Met. Mag., 97, pp

129-141

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