The Big Freeze of 1963: UK's coldest winter in more than 200 years

[@prof.heinous191]

Best winter ever (if you were a kid) maybe not so much fun if you were an adult - happy memories!

[@andyelliott8027]

Agreed, I was 8 and loved it. In those days nobody had double glazing, we didn't have central heating either just a coal fire downstairs and a paraffin heater. Every morning when I woke up my bedroom window was coated with ice on the INSIDE, just like the outside of a car windscreen is after a frosty night.

[@mozartsmate6358]

Yep, we still had to go to school, (walk of course, no buses). We built huge igloos on the football pitches and they were still up in March. Part of the sea froze too. I reckon the whole Country would probably come to a complete standstill if it happened today.. Maybe we were made of sterner stuff back then..

[@nikonikolic1365]

Yup, I remember really well those early years and the regular snow in London. Love love love the snow ❤️❤️❤️

[@jrgboy]

It was exceptional, it started snowing on Boxing Day & didn't stop for 3 months, I was 13 & remember helping my Dad dig our way to the pavement, the snow was over 2 feet deep in our street alone.

[@bobjackson4720]

I remember seeing frozen sea, for UK that was pretty unusual.

[@bobbymills7186]

Bob Jackson, it's actually very unusual no matter where you go, I'm only 15 so I didn't know that the UK had a winter this cold

[@stephensnell1379]

@@bobjackson4720 if it's bitterly cold for long enough yes the seas will turn to ice⚠️

[@robtyman4281]

Apparently the River Thames had ice blocks in it and was completely frozen over in places........the last time this had happened was around 1890. Many rivers all over the UK had ice flows in them. It was the coldest winter overall in the UK in the 20th century - beating 1946/47. Both were before my time, but I do remember some particularly cold winters down the years - 78/79, 86/87, and 2010/11.

[@lennylaa1686]

You have missed a very obvious ''worst ever''.....1981/2......- 25 degrees centigrade at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire....daytime lows of - 5 degrees centigrade.

[@thomasreed49]

I remember it well as a family living in Scotland mum dad and sister we came down to live in England New Year’s Day there was n Snow mountain high on the side of the road all the way down. We live with Nan and grandad. After watching videos grandad said even the sea has frozen over. I wish we could all be back together again. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@happydaze-m]

I was born at home April 1963 my parents told me there was snow above the window sills my dad had to dig a trench to get out of front door onto the road 😮

[@mariansteele6452]

I remember it so well . Baby and toddler in 3rd floor flat . Pipes frozen , moved in with mum for a week until they thawed , back home for a short while until they froze again . The good thing to come from it was it gave us the impetus to start looking for and buying our first house. So not all bad .

[@peterschweiger]

I remember seeing snow on roof tops for months as I cycled to school. Black ice was a constant danger in the mornings and snow men lived happily in front gardens for days, even when the thaw set in.

[@peterwright3595]

I was11remember it we'll still went to school everyday never seen snow like it before went fishing with my brother bait was frozen in the garden shed great fun as a kid

[@felixfelix7447]

I was five. Walking home from infants school. Wellies not tall enough. Brilliant!

[@peterwright3595]

No what u mean. Hard as nails them days good thou

[@ajadrew]

I was 5 yrs old & vividly remember loads of snow in my Grandparents garden nr Tonbridge in Kent!

[@peterg957]

I remember it well and yes it was bloody cold...

[@peterjackson2625]

I remember it well. I was due to start a new job 200 miles away. Got 3/4 way there and had to stop for the night. The last 60 miles took all of the next day. Saw a line of cars in s side road. Only the roofs were visible. Also someone with a shopping basket - on skis!

[@pauleades9037]

I remember as a child on our farm in Shropshire, being snowed in for 6 weeks before we could get up our lane.

[@chrisbarrett1959]

Great video, thanks for sharing. Throughout history there have been some very severe winters. In the CET (central England temperature) record that goes back to 1659 the winters of 1683-1684 and 1739-1740 were colder, the former being the coldest, but 1740 had the coldest YEAR by a wide margin in the entire CET record.

[@rjjcms1]

The legendary cold winters were 1946-47 and 1962-63,about which people older than me told me various anecdotes. They were before I was born,but I remember 1978-79 having a lot of snow between New Year's Eve and the middle of February.

[@robnewman6101]

Keep Calm and Carry on.

[@stephensnell5707]

Do remember that the UK isn't used to extremely cold weather in the Winter

[@jacobisrael-o4k]

we had no central heating in those days, and there was no cold weather payments me old mates

[@marionmoore665]

Yes remember it, at the infant school back then. At break times we built an igloo in the playground. We had the local paper come out and take pictures. 🤗👏😂

[@alanfrost4661]

Before climate panic set in and every body started flying to meetings wow

[@richardcowley6687]

it started on Christmas eve for us, we had very deep snow over the houses in Rainford, lasted until April

[@bwghall1]

Chippenham frog- well in Wiltshire, the snow started on the boxing day at 6 pm and the snowflakes were the size of 10 bob notes. I had to drive my Jowett back into Bath somerset. just made it okay.

[@ginajones1003]

Briddy Hll That could have been very badly timed. Last winter we had a few nights of heavy snow in East Cornwall and several cars got stuck on the roads. My husband, who was on his way home from work, further west, took two strangers home from a pub after he stopped there for some hot tea. He got home, eventually, at 11pm. Having been born shortly after winter 1963 we have not experienced long periods of being cut off. There were occasions in the late 1960’s and 1970’s that it was easy to get cut off; though not for long.

[@colin5064]

Some people look back to this time with fond memories of carefree childhood. I sadly look back and remember the tradjic death of my baby sister Sandra ,this was due to her catching Pneumonia at eleven month old. Our father was a self employed plasterer,he could not work due to the very cold weather conditions across UK. No work no money in them days,we had no coal for the fire to heat the house. I remember our mother going without food so we three children could eat. Do I look back with anger damn right I do

[@grandslam1998]

I well remember. So dam cold and the snow was deep.

[@shauncorless8965]

I can name two worse winter, s mike and bernie,,absolutely terrible

[@carolynmarriott9514]

I arrived back in the UK (from sunny warm Africa) on my18th birthday in December '62 to that weather. I was shocked, the water pipes were frozen, no water in the kitchen, the bathroom, the loo. Surely, I thought Winter happens every year, but no, this was unusual!

[@stephensnell1379]

That indicates the pipes were all outdoors and exposed to the cold Nowadays they are indoors

[@yesemitesam333]

My most vivid memory, apart from the depth of snow, was the number of dead birds I saw lying around. They were mostly smaller, garden birds such as finches, tits, thrushes, robins etc. There was just no food for them and with the severe cold they didn't stand a chance.

[@rrrpppbbb]

Yes it was very cold , my old dads balls froze and fell off , it made me and my brother laugh , we used them as conkers , they were great until they thawed out ! Then we had to give them back to him, the good old days , living in freezing cold houses with the toilet frozen , it was great ! !!!!

[@fzafg]

wtf lol

[@alfching2499]

Bloody Marvellous.Let’s have a revival and bring it back ❄️❄️❄️

[@stephensnell1379]

@@alfching2499 that won't happen anytime soon our winters as you may have noticed are getting milder

[@lynneburns4303]

I remember it well . I was 10 years old 😮

[@mabelmitchell4050]

My husband and I arrived back with new baby from Kenya he was in the army. So we certainly found it ver very cold.

[@ginajones1003]

Mabel Mitchell Brrr, particularly coming from Kenya , you must have really suffered from the cold. :-)

[@davidpearn2484]

I was seven in the south Wales valley's unbelievable.

[@inkats]

And we were married on 12th January 1963 - GREAT!!!

[@LondonWeatherMan]

The west-country was the worst hit I believe, with rural areas cut off for months on end.

[@georgejob5434]

London Weather Climate & Space NEWS .... We got it worse in West Central Scotland!! From November 1962-March 1963 !! Below freezing day and night !! I was an apprentice then! It was brutal...

[@lucymorris30]

London Weather Climate & Space

[@alberttatlock5237]

I lived in an area of Dartmoor called princetown, you couldn't leave the moors, it was like nothing I'd ever seen, ice inside the window's and on the wall in my bedroom, god knows how low the temp was outside but it was certainly below zero inside, no double glazing or central hearing back then, stone built property's with no cavity wall insulation, no loft insulation, tiles missing from the roof, only heating was coal fire and coal was in short supply.

[@ginajones1003]

Albert Tatlock Princetown gets cut off still; every time we get deep snow. :-(

[@aflqs1177]

What about the winter of 1947?

[@Cpr1234]

I live fairly close to Harper Adams University which recorded England's lowest temperature, -26.2°C on 10th January 1982, I wasn't even born then

[@rjjcms1]

1981-82 was one of the snowiest winters of the 80s. There was a lot on the ground in early-to-mid December,as I remember from tramping to college in it before the Christmas holidays,and some more at times in January and February. There were three winters with a lot of snow,typically in January and February,in 1984-85,1985-86 and 1986-87. Where I was in the south of England every fourth winter had no snow - 1979-80,1983-84 and 1987-88 but the winters became noticeably (to me,anyway) milder at that point (evidence of climate change?) with no snow in 1988-89 and 1989-90 either. I remember hearing on the news of temperatures of minus 20 or below in Scotland around the turn of the year in 1978-79,and also just before Christmas in 1995.

[@garethifan1034]

I remember it well - it was -17 for a whole week in Aberystwyth in the coast and the sea had large sheets of ice on it. Much of the harbour was frozen too. Huge snows as well, especially out of town and in the hills.

[@Madronaxyz]

Do you think the weakening of the jet stream caused by global climate change will allow more big freezes? The blizzard in Atlanta a couple of years ago was very scary.

[@MrGrahamPDavis]

Large and more or less stationary atmospheric troughs and ridges are associated with strong jet streams, weak ones tend to produce more numerous and more mobile ones.. This would suggest extremes are less likely with a weakening jet stream but when a similar differential warming between the Arctic and Tropics occurred during the first half of the 20th century, the upper winds strengthened rather than weakened. This went against expectations at the time but resulted in severe winters in NW Europe during the 1940s. I don't know whether those predicting a weakening of the jet stream this time will also be wrong and get their predictions of extreme weather correct but for the wrong reasons.

[@BobBob-fx4nq]

Thor Swenson, there may be an increased chance of extreme weather with climate change, so you could see a lot of snow. But you’re right; the general path is seeing to warmer winters

[@seannuttall6887]

Could it happen again

[@zoiciteUK]

Could this ever happen again

[@stephensnell1379]

Possibly But with the way the globe is warming up its unlikely to occur ever again

[@OrkunMelihKoksal]

yes it can. But it's extremely rare. that much cold in the UK. is even way too cold for Russian standards

[@eugennastasi7422]

Sounds funny, looks like a regular winter in East Europe 🤨

[@Rebecca-se3fu]

This is Western not Eastern Europe.

[@stephensnell1379]

@@Rebecca-se3fu some people don't realise that extreme cold weather isn't a UK thing and also not everyone is good at geography

[@mariuskvernvold1162]

❄It was the year I was born..❗👶 Marius🧸

[@rogersmith8339]

But surely global warming had not been invented when I was young, so who did they blame for the cold weather?

[@kennethjones6772]

You know when you think about it the state of Alaska sees colder temperatures than that every year even Today in 2018... because -8 Celsius is only about 18°F Alaska sees temperatures as low as -20 to -50 Fahrenheit which is way colder than -8 Celsius so that means in Celsius that’s roughly -29 to -45 Celsius. Alaskans see you temperatures like that all the time LOL almost every single year

[@XYZUNKNOWN]

Alaska is much further north than the UK though.

[@tbxmxdog9187]

The UK dont invest in that much in snow equipment due to the majority of the uk only getting a couple of snow days a year or even no snow days. The minority tends to be in the hilly and mountain areas and north of Scotland

[@XYZUNKNOWN]

@@tbxmxdog9187 Technically that snot true. On average there are around 20-30 days of snowfall in most places in a year. There has been no year recorded where there hasn't been snowfall on at least one day. Snow lying is a different matter though.

[@ginajones1003]

Tbxmxdog It’s not that bad, yet. We can still get it very cold and snowy every so often. See my earlier reply re last winter.

[@faheemwaqar1472]

BUT MY wife was new borned baby in1963

[@ginajones1003]

Faheem Waqar Her parents must have found having a newborn difficult in 1963. Keeping her warm enough, and well too as access would have made it difficult to get over the counter medications; for illnesses like colic etc are very common in newborns.