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The Big Freeze 1963

  • 11-01-2025 6:25pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,696 ✭✭✭


    Just watched this program on BBC4. It was a crazy winter and I assume we in Ireland got a bout of it especially the east coast.

    With a watch for anyone interested especially the explanation during it what caused it and how the different weather fronts get pushed around or dig in.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q9d86



Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,399 ✭✭✭OldRio


    I have a hazy memory of it. We were living in England at the time. Bitterly cold with ridiculous amounts of snow on the rooftops and roads. Massive icycles hanging from pipes.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 586 ✭✭✭Bogey Lowenstein
    That must be Nigel with the brie...


    I saw a gangster/heist film that was shot during that big snow. I can't remember the name but it would have been instantly forgettable only for the snow scenes.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 586 ✭✭✭Bogey Lowenstein
    That must be Nigel with the brie...


    I found it, Calculated Risk.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,004 ✭✭✭Comhrá


    I remember it vaguely. It was three weeks of hard frost. I was in national school which was closed due to burst pipes.

    I remember playing in a field on the farm that flooded in winter and there was a good-sized area of ice where neighbour's kids and myself could go sliding every day.

    It was a wonderful memory, blue skies, everywhere frozen solid. I was eight yrs old then.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 390 ✭✭almostthere12


    Whereabouts were you living Comhra? I think the south and east got fairly heavy snow from it but depending on your location you might prove otherwise.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,004 ✭✭✭Comhrá


    I was living near Borrisokane in North Tipperary back then. I don't remember us having much snow that year but the prolonged frost was severe and exceptional.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,744 ✭✭✭cml387


    I don't remember much except being inside for a long time (Medway towns) and then much later seeing huge caverns of cleared dirty snow. Plus BBC showed High Noon instead of Grandstand one Saturday because there was no sport!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,868 ✭✭✭✭sryanbruen


    On the whole, 1947 was a much snowier winter in Ireland but 1963 still had some very heavy snowfalls - mainly around New Year and then for the north in early February. Casement's 45cm depth recorded on New Year's Eve 31st December 1962 holds the record for an official met station in the country to the present day.

    850hPa temperatures were not outstanding hovering around the -8C mark but this combined with a very long fetch was enough to bring exceptionally heavy snowfalls to the south and east of the country. An occlusion crossing the country enhanced the precipitation.

    Ironically, the previous winter had lower minimum temperatures than this one did with Carlow seeing -14.6C on 31st December 1961 which would hold as the national December record in the Republic until 2010 when it was subsequently smashed to pieces on numerous occasions.

    Photography site - https://sryanbruenphoto.com/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,577 ✭✭✭pureza


    We have my parents love letters in a box here,mum in cork ,dad in Arklow,theyre both dead now sadly but the gist of the january 63 letters were regret because dad was snowed in a good bit of the time and couldnt get the mg out the lane (yeah he had an mg) never mind drive down to cork

    I remember him telling me at one stage the snow was the height of the ditches,so there must have been a lot of heavy irish sea streamers



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 917 ✭✭✭Joe 90


    My father talked of standing on the roof of a truck whilst digging it out of the snow in 1947.

    For you youngsters, trucks in those days tended to have the engine in front of the cab instead of under it so were much lower overall than now.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,109 ✭✭✭Deregos.


    My mother gave birth to my older brother Patrick in the back of an ambulance, which had gotten stuck in the big snow of 63.



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