The blizzard of February 1978 tends to get overshadowed by those of 1917, 1933 (which itself tends to not get much light nowadays), 1947, 1963 and 1982. I think a reason being is the fact that it didn't affect the east coast of Ireland much. The snow was mainly around southern regions of Ireland.
February 1978 was the coldest February since 1969 with mean temperatures as low as 3.2°C at Glenties, Co. Donegal and Dunsany, Co. Meath, around 1 to 1.5°C below average using the 1981-2010 averages. To put this into perspective, Dunsany's mean for February 1978 equals that of February 2018 at the station (exactly 40 years later). The reason for February 1978's cold mean temperatures was down to the cold spell from the 8th-19th which was dominated by easterly winds of continental origin. High pressure built over Scandinavia linking up with the high over Greenland to form one monster block. Low pressure tried to invade from the Atlantic a couple of times but were forced to track southwards and pass close by the south coasts courtesy of this anticyclonic block up to the north. These depressions led to heavy falls of snow accompanied by the bitter strong easterly winds to southern and some midland or eastern regions. Roche's Point had nearly 5 inches of precipitation (including 39.5mm on the 11th and 38.7mm on the 18th) during the cold spell as a consequence of these depressions whilst parts of the north, west and other midlands received very little but still very cold nevertheless.
The first week was westerly based but not all that mild with temperatures relatively below average in spite of a lack of severe air frost whilst the last week of the month brought in southwesterly winds resulting in a warming trend (in comparison to February 2018 which went the opposite way) and thus why the February 1978 mean temperatures weren't as severely cold as they could have been.
The air minimum temperature for February 1978 at Irish stations that I know of was -10.0°C at Glenties on the 13th whilst the grass minimum temperature plunged to -16.0°C at the same station on the 12th. Mean temperatures for the period 11th-20th February 1978 were -0.3°C and -0.5°C at Carlow (Oak Park) and Glenties respectively. The lowest the UK got to was -22.0°C at Keith (Grampians) on the 19th/20th, the lowest since 1963.
Some notable low maximum temperatures include -0.8°C at Cork Airport on the 12th and 0.8°C on the 19th, 0.3°C at Carlow (Oak Park) on the 12th, 0.1°C at Kilkenny on the 12th, 0.6°C at Birr on the 11th and 0.4°C on the 12th.
On the 18th and 19th February 1978, an area of low pressure slid just to the southwest of Ireland with the cold being well established by then over the country. Easterly winds gusted to nearly 70 mph at Malin Head on the 18th with a maximum 10-minute wind speed of 45 mph on the same day. The precipitation increasingly turned to heavy snowfall as it hit the cold air over the Irish and British lands. The strong winds led to large snow drifts of up to 20 ft in the southwest of the UK. The weather front carrying the snow was expected to move right across the south and continue to move eastwards into the midlands of the UK, but stalled over the southwest bringing depths to these regions unknown to man. Over 34cm of snow with 24 ft drifts were reported at Exeter Airport and a depth of 26cm at Cork Airport was recorded. To this day, this is Cork Airport's greatest snow depth on record. Enormous drifts on the moors in England blocked scores of roads, paralysing the transport network. Power lines were brought down and for three days many parts of Devon had no electricity or running water. Supplies of food and water were flown into the worst hit areas by helicopter. Not much is known in regards to the blizzard in Ireland but it was one of the worst blizzards ever to hit the south of Ireland and the southwest of the UK.
The beginnings of the cold spell, 8th February 1978.
A low that developed out to the west on the 11th brought a snow depth of 6cm at Shannon Airport, Co. Clare; its greatest recorded snow depth to this day.
The period of the February 1978 blizzard.
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