Mid-November 1996 contained a cold spell that is rather forgotten as it wasn't too remarkable historically wise compared to let's say 1919, 1965 or 1993 for three examples (and later 2010 too). Nevertheless, the spell did provide some interest. It was frequented by northerly winds for most of the period (18th to 24th November 1996).
The winds briefly turned westerly on the 18th as a deep depression of 965mb approached from the Atlantic into the southwest of Ireland and ran along the south of the country into the UK on the 19 November 1996. The depression struggled to push eastwards due to high pressure to the north and as a result slid to the southeast forcing northerly/northeasterly gales to occur. There was plenty of heavy rain over England, Wales and eastern parts of Ireland. Casement Aerodrome, Co. Dublin recorded a daily rainfall of 58.4mm on the 19th, its wettest November day on record until 5 November 2000.
The north recorded very little rain on the 19th whilst uphill areas under the depression had heavy snow including Blessington in the Wicklow Mountains and the Welsh Mountains where depths reached between 5-12cm of snow. By the 21st, the Pennines in the north of England had a snow depth up to 26cm.
The 18th and 20th-23rd were generally frosty and sunny with a lot of dry weather but some scattered wintry showers over various parts of the UK and a weak band of rain in the west of Ireland on the 21st. Minimum temperatures regularly got below freezing throughout the period including England, Wales and Ireland. The table below shows the daily temperature records in the UK for 18th-24th November 1996. Three consecutive nights where -10c was recorded somewhere in the UK and every night had a grass minimum at least -10c or lower somewhere in the UK.
Ireland's temperature records during the spell included an air minimum of -5.7c at Straide, Co. Mayo on the 21st, the lowest November temperature in Ireland since 1993 and a grass minimum of -12.3c at Kilkenny and Derrygreenagh on the same day, again the lowest for November in Ireland since 1993.
Cork Airport had its lowest November grass minimum temperature on record on the 21st with -8.9c, as did Mullingar with -9.7c.
You can see how the spell evolved with this GIF of reanalysis charts.
Extract from Met Éireann's weather bulletin for November 1996.
This spell was a big contrast to how the month initially started including a maximum of 17.9c at Merrion Square, Co. Dublin on the 1st and 18.1c at Heathrow Airport on the 2nd.
500mb height anomaly reanalysis for November 1996. It was a fairly cold, wet and sometimes stormy month overall but very sunny and the sunniest November since 1965 for many.
Youngsters in Colwyn Bay, Wales made the most of the unexpected blizzards in November 1996 (likely the 19th) which caused pupils to be sent home early from schools.
