Extraordinary cold of February 1956: A True Beast

The beginning of February 1956 brought a brief but very extraordinary feed of cold air from Siberia over Europe including the UK and Ireland.

Look how each day evolves here.

28th January, warm air advection is taking place but quite a strong Polar Vortex and barely any signs of a Scandinavian High.

One day later on the 29th, the high establishes itself with a eerie deep pool of cold air way to the east of Europe which will push towards us.

1st February 1956.... well and truly locked into the bitter easterly bringing severe cold air and snow showers. Daytime temperatures below freezing.

On the 2nd however, the intensely cold air mass was pulled away from the UK and Ireland due to a weakening of the easterly flow.

The Central England Temperature (CET) for February 1956 up to the 3rd was -6.2. The overall CET for February 1956 was -0.2. Maxima for the 1st/2nd February 1956 were the lowest widely since 1947 and perhaps 1895.

According to Tutiempo archive, Heathrow Airport recorded the following data in early February 1956.

Some Irish statistics for this period from Met Éireann.

Maximum temperatures

Minimum temperatures

Dublin Airport got down to -8.2°C on the 19th February 1956 whilst Valentia Observatory got down to -5.1°C on the 15th. Shannon Airport got down to -8.2°C on the 15th and -8.3°C on the 26th.

The mean temperature for February 1956 was 12F below normal for Saxony, eastern Bavaria and Bohemia with the rest of the continent being at least 5F below normal.

Iceland and Greenland were 3 to 4F above normal, Spitsbergen 7F above norm.

A high pressure of 1074mb at Sakelhard, northwest Siberia was observed on the 15th.

At Marseilles, France, the mean temperature of -1.2 for February 1956 is an amazing -3.2°C colder than the second-coldest month of January 1985, whose mean was 2.0, and -4.6°C colder than the previous coldest February in a record going back to 1838 of February 1932 whose mean was 3.4.

At Bologna, Italy, in a non-continuous record whose earliest data are from 1808, February 1956 with a mean of -4.0 was the coldest month, beating January 1830 with -3.2. At Milan in a record going back to 1763, February 1956 was the coldest month of the twentieth century, -0.6°C colder than January 1985, and the coldest month since the extreme winter of 1879/1880 when December average -3.7 and January -3.4.

Even Rome, further south and less exposed to the penetration of cold air over the Alps, had its coldest month in a record going back to 1811, with a mean of 3.0 or about as cold as a normal February in Scotland. Rome’s previous coldest month had been the Januaries of 1864, 1880 and 1942, all of which averaged 3.7. At Palma de Mallorca, on a Mediterranean island, February 1956 averaged 6.3 against a long-term mean of 11.2 and 0.8 below the previous coldest month of January 1935.

February 1956 temperature anomalies for the globe against the 1880-1974 averages. Notice the deep cold over Europe and warmth over Greenland.