The Big Snow Of '82

[Bazile]

20 ft drifts 

You remember that ?

I don't 

 

[Canary42]

No, I don't. I do remember the '63 one, but nothing near it since.

[237SJ]

Yes, it was really bad in North Devon.

[jourdain2]

Yes I do. I was towing my younger daughter around on a sledge, aided by our labrador, to do the shopping.  There were 5' long icicles hanging from the eaves and my parents' ancient plumbing burst in the kitchen, leaving an ice-rink over the kitchen floor.........We packed everyone up and drove a perilpous 12 miles to briing them to our house ..... and they refused!  They'd been through 1947 in a house with gaslights and weren't about to pack in.

I remember it felt quie warm when it went up to -2C.

Lots more memories.

[Togo]

Yes. Big big snow storm in N Wales. Huge snow drifts along the road that is now the A55 from Colwyn Bay to Bangor and on down through the Llyn peninsular. I was working in Bangor and just managed to get home to Deganwy by the skin of my teeth. People who commuted to Bangor from my, then, area and left 10 minutes after me got stuck and some spent the night and longer sleeping on the floor of the Aber Falls Hotel Llanfairfechan. 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/january-snow-1982-started-snowing-14127091

[237SJ]

We had no electricity and no water for 5 days (at the same time) We were lucky because we had a coal fired Rayburn so we could cook.  We had no water but my Gran had 6 ft high water butts in her field so my Dad and I used to go and fill up buckets of water to take home and heat on the Rayburn. I have happy memories of being snowed in whilst playing cards and listening to the radio.  Happy days.

[rockyracoon]

I was stuck on a school trip in Wales. We got snowed in and had to stay an extra week. It was rubbish.

[Togo]

It snowed for 36 hrs non stop. When I tried to get into work the following Monday the 10th as I had the keys this was what confronted me. I remember that those drifts had abandoned cars in them and the plough just had to shunt them out of the road. 

http://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article14126986.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200e/JS76496003.jpg

 

[Togo]

That image was from Wales online and taken just to the west of Conwy. I probably waited for that plough before I could pass. We all had cb radios back then and were in communication with a lot of the truckers and utility workers. Strictly unofficially of course. 

[237SJ]

I remember we had freezing rain which settled on the telephone wires and trees and coated them in ice. When the wind blew, the trees sounded like wind chimes. The lines came down because they were so heavy due to ice and birds died because they couldn't perch anywhere. 

[Togo]

I also remember it well because I had just had my company vehicle exchanged at the beginning of the year, as you did, it was a Datsun Sunny Estate and I chose it because the back seats folded down and you could sleep or camp in theb back. I would carry 5 passengers and a load in the back and although it was a vile mushroom like colour it took me all over the UK and never missed a beat. When everybody else was struggling to get their motors started after the freeze it started first time and coped with the slippy conditions easily. I could get about 8 televisions in the back if i had to and tvs were pretty big back then. Different world. 

[barry1010]

Why don't houses and buildings with pitched roofs have snow guards these days? 

[dave50]

Good job climate change hadn't been invented. 

[Canary42]

Ah, I was thinking December 82. But in January '82 (it's all coming back now) I was unemployed after being made redundant by ICL in Stevenage and temporarily living back home with Mum in Norwich and I had an interview come up in Staines.  I set out really early and while OK at first it got a lot worse approaching London area and I then hit a horrendous jam on the old London North Orbital (no M25 in those days) with sliding lorries jamming the roads all over the place.  I was very soon running very late (long after interview time) so I stopped (somewhere off the Orbital north of Watford I think) and found a telephone box (no mobile phones in those days) and rang North Thames Gas (prospective employer) to tell them. They replied "oh, we never expected you with this weather" so I guess it was bad there too. We agreed a new date and on that occasion I was successful, much to my relief having been idle for months.

[piggynose]

no, but i do remember very deep snow in ´88!