What's strange about the weather?

1967 in may in Birmingham we had snow.

Very little Blackthorn here anno - we are perhaps a tad higher, and less sheltered maybe? Most of the blackthorn buds not even thinking about it yet.

Even so, it's still been the coldest March for 51 years....with no let-up in sight!

There's plenty of blackthorn in bloom in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, but I'd normally expect to see it a month earlier.

Listen to what Claire Balding says about the weather during the Oxbridge Boat Race (on iPlayer). She says the Boat Race has seen every kind of weather since the first one in 1829. This is what I would expect in Britain.

When I had my allotment in Oxfordshire, sloe blossom was usually visible in April rather than March. I guess it depends on the 'aspect' of your sloe bushes as well as the weather when the blossom opens. The makers of the garden at Inverewe in Wester Ross built and planted the garden with its particularly favourable 'aspect' in mind. Plants that wouldn't normally grow that far north do well there because of this.

I was born in the month of March and IT WAS SNOWING. Nothing that hasn't happened before.

JessM I remember being let out of school in Brighton early one day at the beginning May because of heavy snow. Must have been 1962/3 or thereabouts. I must admit though, seeing the beach covered in snow 3 winters running is a little more unusual.
I can remember at least 2 occasions when my girls have built sizeable snowmen in May so that would have been during the 1980s. Not Sussex though - would have been Berkshire or Northants.

Daffs out and crocii

When we moved to Cornwall in 1975 we had snow at Easter, which I think was at the beginning of April. The weather hadn't been anything like as cold though.

Snowdrops still in flower here, though fading fast. Daffodils are thinking about flowering. I have pictures of daffs in this garden with snow on them.

Snowdrops have faded here and there are masses of hellebores out. If the weather does suddenly warm up, everything will rush to catch up.

Snowdrops out next door still. Pool frozen over. Apricot in bloom. Rooks nesting. Me freezing!

Certainly is in the south of England elothan snowdrops in March not normal at all. And blackthorn not out in march also not normal. Colder than the seasonal average wouldn't you say, what, old chum? Can't speak for other parts.

I actually do think there's something odd about the weather.

Yes, LullyDully and if we do by some miracle get a hot summer we shall moan about being too hot.

Why do the British always talk about weather? just because it is never predictable. and always takes us by surprised. It's what keeps us happy moaning about the weather.

Got married early April 1976 on a wonderful hot day.

In 1975, at the beginning of June, we had snow. My DS2 was in hospital in Birmingham and the city centre was jammed. That week snow stopped play in a county cricket match at Buxton. At the end of the same week a heatwave began and we bought a paddling pool for the kids on the way home from the hospital.

I remember 1976 my son was born on July 13th after 6wks of scorching temps I think I lived in the cool shower for most of that time lol, that night I sat up with my newborn son watching the storm blow in, the thunder and lightening was just magnificent but it didn't rain till the early hours.

I don't remember snow this late. A friend got married on 17th March and it was snowy but we thought that was late at the time and I don't remember any later since. Maybe its the dementia

I think its the first time I have seen snow on catkins.

We worked all through that long, hot summer in 1976, then at the beginning of September we went to Devon on holiday, and the weather broke on the Thursday lunchtime, rained all day, and absolutely poured down on the Friday, we were in a very soggy Dawlish with 5 very bored kids.

Gally 1975 the year I got married (see previous post)
I remember the summer of '76 "sigh" still in the honeymoon period

Saw an ancient packhorse bridge recently over the R Livet in Scotland. One of the arches was swept away in a flood in the nineteenth century. The other two are still there.

The floods aren't unusual either, jings. We've just built more houses on flood plains.

In 1975 climatologists thought there was too much ice in the arctic and wanted to drop soot on it to speed up melting. Politicians were too sluggish. Nothing has changed except that climatologists have changed their tune to too little ice. I reckon that within a decade they'll be worrying about too much ice again. They seem a bit slow about climate cycles.

That was my wedding day grannya it poured on the Friday, we got up on the Saturday to the start of that glorious summer 1976.