January 1984 was an unprecedented month. It was cold, it was snowy, it was stormy, it was wet. There is no month comparable to it, it is very unique. Westerly to northwesterly winds were the dominant feature. However, these winds brought highly unusual cold polar maritime air from the northwest of the north Atlantic Ocean. The closest comparisons we've seen since then are Winters 2014/15 and 2017/18 (notably January 2018) but these are nothing compared to January 1984. In a decade of generally cold and snowy Winters, January 1984 didn't seem unusual but the fact that the air and widespread snow came from a northwesterly airstream is strange and why I think this month is so interesting.
It was the stormiest January since 1974, exactly 10 years before hand and the wettest since 1948 generally. The month was full of gales and in fact, gales were recorded on more than 20 days widely. With the unusual cold air during much of the time, wind chill made it feel absolutely bitter combined with the punctuated gales. A gale on the 13th gave a gust of 104 mph in the northeast of England. There was a destructive tornado in Doncaster on the 14th and lightning was recorded in Leeds. Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland woke up to an air minimum of -23.6°C on the morning of the 20th and Aviemore had -20.6°C too under deep snow cover from prolonged snow showers. Tummel Bridge did not get above -8°C on the 21st. Snow laid to 65cm deep in parts of Scotland on the 23rd leaving many places cut off as a consequence. Snow generally laid for between 5-10 days during the month but there were 30 such days at Kindrogan, 20 days at Glasgow and Edinburgh. London in contrast had only 1 whilst some southern parts of England had none - the south of Ireland had at least 1 mostly. Another tornado with large hail hit Teignmouth on the 26th. It was the sunniest January in the south and east of both countries since 1979 whilst in parts of southeastern England, it was the sunniest January on record at that point though it has been beaten since with Januaries like 2001, 2010 and 2015. Meanwhile, the north had their dullest January since 1974 with parts having less than 60% of their average January sunshine under prolonged snow showers and very stormy conditions. So there's a bit of give or take there, very sunny but not snowy or dull but snowy and stormy. The minimum temperature for Ireland was -10.0°C at Clones on January 20th whilst the same station had a grass minimum of -15.1°C on the same day, the lowest since January 1982 which had a grass minimum of -19.6°C. Kilkenny and Casement Aerodrome saw a grass minimum of -13.2°C also on the 20th, again their lowest since January 1982. Maximum temperatures were just around 0-4°C on around 5-6 days during the month. Some parts had more. Clones for example had maximums of 1.2°C, 2.4°C, 2.2°C, 1.4°C, 1.4°C on January 15th, 18th-20th and 25th respectively. Crazy cold for a northwesterly airstream ain't it? The 27th January 1984 holds Claremorris' snow depth record of 20cm. The CET was 3.8°C which is -0.6°C below the 1981-2010 average. The daily CET for the 20th was -0.3°C whilst 0.1°C for both the 19th and 21st.
This rare setup that January 1984 consisted of is a snow making machine for areas with westerly exposure and altitude for those in Scotland and the north/northwest of Ireland. Mountaineous regions would be talking feet of snow, not inches. The south and west just happened to be lucky with this incredible month of January 1984 to record lying snow or snow falling. Though parts of the extreme south such as Kent in England were left with frustration because they were unlucky to have no snow (or lucky depending on your point of view).
Description of the month for parts of the UK from https://www.derbysulzers.com/snowb.html :
Although cold & snowy weather predominated in January the New Year began with a major fire at Ayr depot, destroyed/damaged in the conflagration were seven dmu's and considerable parts of the structure. Apart from this hot-spot much of January was plagued by storms causing dislocation of services, especially on the WCML where the overhead line equipment was particularly vulnerable.
Gales in the north on 2nd affected services south of Carstairs. More gales accompanied by heavy snow returned on 13/14th damaging the overhead equipment near Thankerton and further south at Preston, causing disruption and cancellation of many WCML services. 25048 made a round trip between Wigan & Preston assisting two WCML electrically hauled services through the damaged area. To ease congestion some WCML services worked out of St Pancras on 14th, the 17.40 to Liverpool Lime Street featured 25207 all the way to Nuneaton! A chilly trip was handled by 25284 working the 13th's 08.40 Carlisle - Glasgow Central, it did not return on the balancing working! It is uncertain whether the snow storms contributed to a Glasgow - Largs service colliding forcefully with the stop blocks at Largs, five passengers requiring hospital attention. In the south heavy rain fell, making it the wettest January since 1948, extremely high winds were reported with tornadoes seen in Doncaster (14th) and Teignmouth (26th).
Heavy snows on January 22nd in places to a depth of two feet blocked both the GSW & CR routes into Scotland, with drifts of fifteen feet being reported. Engineering work on the ECML was quickly postponed, although too late to prevent one ECML passenger train being diverted towards Carlisle, then having to retrace its steps after word of the snow blockages spread. The failure of the 23.40 Edinburgh/Glasgow - Bristol near Crawford was not helped by the rescuing locomotive becoming stuck in a sizeable snowdrift. The gale force winds did nothing to help matters, quickly undoing the arduous work of the snowploughs. The down 'Clansman' became stuck at Dalwhinnie, somehow an ex Glasgow service forced its way alongside taking all the passengers to Inverness. It was several days before the stock of the 'Clansman' was freed from the snow. In later snow clearing operations here 26044 suffered serious fire damage, leading to withdrawal. The most affected train was an overnight Inverness - Euston service that was initially diverted via Aberdeen, suffered a partial locomotive failure, reached Motherwell only to find the way south blocked. A circumnavigation of the Hamilton circle found the train headed for Kilmarnock and the GSW route to Carlisle, having taken fifteen hours to cross the border. The 23rd's 10.15 Euston - Glasgow used 25185 & 25212 between Carlisle & Newcastle, as nothing was available at Newcastle to replace the Type 2's the train was terminated here, with the ecs returning to Carlisle. Many services were cancelled, others running many hours late, to ease the problems all freights north of Carlisle were cancelled.
Further north the 21st's 14.15 Fort William - Glasgow Queen Street ran into a snowdrift near Bridge of Orchy, services not resuming until 27th. Passengers from this train spent several days in local hotels. The lines north of Inverness were closed by snowdrifts, with the 17.55 Inverness - Kyle stuck west of Achnasheen and the 18.00 Wick - Inverness trapped at Scotscalder. RAF helicopters quickly located the ex Wick train rescuing all the passengers despite appalling weather conditions. For the Kyle passengers helicopter rescue took place the next morning. Although the storms had predominantly affected Scotland snow fell as far south as the north Midlands.
Fun trivia - Winters 1983/84, 2014/15 and 2017/18 were all easterly QBO seasons and they were all northwesterly dominated seasons. Very sunny too!
Here's the chart of mean 850hPa temperatures (so monthly averages) and anomalies for January 1984. Look at where the isobars are pointing from yet how cold it was.
The northwesterly flow is clear on this reanalysis of January 1984.
Here's my graph of Irish stations' daily air minimum temperatures for January 1984, using Met Éireann's historical data. Note the flip flops in temperature? This reveals the changeable stormy and northwesterly pattern that dominated January 1984 - Winter 2014/15 had similar flip flops but cold wasn't as extreme as January 1984.
Here's my graph of Irish stations' daily grass minimum temperatures for January 1984, using Met Éireann's historical data. I could not include Birr and Clones as for some reason, their grass minimum temperature data are not available on the site.
This picture is of Herbert Park, Ballsbridge, Co. Dublin in January 1984. Courtesy of Dano Dublin Images.
This picture, taken by Alan Reid, is of Vale of Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 5 January 1984 snowed in.
The ice children cometh as these four Grimsby (east of England - an even more unusual place for snow from a northwesterly) 'eskimoes' clamber out of their igloo in Wybers Wood in January 1984.
More pics from January 1984 here:
http://www.ith.org.uk/NTiger-gallery.html
https://twitter.com/PhotosAllan/status/953017873626255360
https://twitter.com/Peter_Mugridge/status/952321438417149957
https://twitter.com/FootballArchive/status/565586357960335362
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1843471375665630&set=a.185527334793384.49335.100000083570702&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212022080126737&set=pcb.587721001427955&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212022080806754&set=pcb.587721001427955&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/bbcscotlandnews/videos/1476428115714735/?hc_ref=ARRVriJoz1_iv7At--p74AY_s2V5H4r7QGOqkVSNQbUK6cg8Ib6__kq72m-HogOfzjE
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1724340087598141&set=basw.AbovMc3-3CSZzNOfiEXe3AWRnRAPAIV86BpeoMJdENmFgERIK3cQlHZYzJWjwNxmSchupeVVFbkO74Bnz8fiLG0h2pidbV2PaUKKg3RHZRImtmpwBuPfXC0yG7n81ZsDjRzPFph_KZHCdqEVSu2HOjCfhvtmehoVLUQtWlz6wmLq9Q.1843471375665630.1843471285665639.1843471255665642.1843471238998977.1724340087598141.1445333602215086.935759536600433.1576380359082217.2026049467665011&type=1&theater
https://www.facebook.com/BaRiLeicester/photos/basw.AbpOJjxtsHXyw0J057Q6jjv3LRai5nwkwAO5H76hehKvkXg2NupIcIaXfpHqHX4ikBiJc4UkhSOHGYCoVNvdFaMHoerfftSxlrhhEYNTGOucBLEhq1oTN41NHzY6dsqJtYEVrOQFgtFbzZkNDdbLMhgMQJPJMtF0wA3STPLWgEP9WQ.1843471375665630.1843471285665639.1843471255665642.1843471238998977.1724340087598141.1445333602215086.935759536600433.1576380359082217.2026049467665011/1445333602215086/?type=1&theater
https://www.facebook.com/BecclesBungayJournal/photos/basw.AbpgTILkGZQdamuSWCz5huk-YnMeygu-ii0gL9pexvr0DiV-xAhZT9VGzQlKC608sfXBIa7_ghW__4LmNQeuag_qymXpcjb18IKgu9gN1ba9ea5Sit7_a-A_pM963I2eo7QFDTQzcLk0gEJlrP2IXFoujsiUAaCzWH-z5mHlLCvJ1g.1843471375665630.1843471285665639.1843471255665642.1843471238998977.1724340087598141.1445333602215086.935759536600433.1576380359082217.2026049467665011/1576380359082217/?type=1&theater
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/swanning-around-on-a-snowy-winter-s-day-in-1984-1.2953720
The UK snow survey of 1983/84 can be found here: https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/file/sdb%3AdigitalFile%7Cf8a682b1-2e14-4432-a9dc-2f7d3c9213d9/
UK monthly weather report for January 1984: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/mohippo/pdf/p/o/jan1984.pdf
UK daily weather summaries for January 1984: https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/file/sdb%3AdigitalFile%7Cae979112-0664-4aec-b07a-ea830a155124/
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