NEVER HAD IT SO BAD

By M. G. PEARSON University of Edinburgh

MEASURE of the severity of winter is found in the impression which it A leaves on those who have experienced similar or more adverse conditions. Perhaps the most memorable winters of recent times were those of 1947 and 1963; but how did they compare with winters, say, at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries in Scotland? Were hard winters then more frequent and more severe than they are now?

THE WINTER OF 1830-31 A report in the Caledonian Mercury of 1831 reads as follows: ‘Tuesday the

first of February, 1831, will, we fear, be a memorable day throughout Scotland, if not further south. On that day we were visited by one of the most violent snowstorms within our recollection, exceeding, as we think it does, in magnitude, the storms of 1823 and 1827’.

Until that Tuesday it had been a mild winter, unusually mild according to one report which was published on Christmas Day 1830. During Christmas week there had been a drop in temperature in Edinburgh from 40°F to 19°F and during the following week there was a slight fall of snow, with a continuation of frost. No unusual conditions were reported‘in January and then at the beginning of February the snow fell in earnest, driven by a strong east wind. The storm raged throughout the whole of Tuesday with great fury, and the snow continued to fall on the Wednesday morning, but the wind had moderated. ‘Edinburgh presented a very picturesque appearance . . . The snow lay in the streets in many instances to a great depth, having been blown into long sloping ridges or mounds.’ The reporter went on to describe the difficulties involved in clearing the streets and commented on the late arrival of mails from Dumfries, Glasgow, London and the North (For location of places mentioned in the text, see Fig. 1). ‘We under- stand’, he concluded, ‘the snow in the vicinity is drifted to the depth of 8 or 10 feet.’

In Glasgow it was also the strong wind - ‘the win’ blew as ’twould blawn its last’ - which impressed the observers. The driving snow drastically reduced visibility so that it was scarcely possible to see the street lamps at a distance of a few yards. On the Wednesday morning drifts between five and six feet high were commonplace. Delays in the mails from London, Ayr, and Perth were only to be expected.

The Stirling Journal also described the high wind, driving snow and blocked roads. In Perth the storm was preceded by several days of keen black frost. The wind there was from the south-east, increased ‘almost to a hurricane’ during the night and drove the snow into deep drifts. For eight days before the fateful

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Tuesday Aberdeenshire had suffered all the rigour of winter - ‘driving snow and the most intense and chilling frost’. It was on the Monday night that the snow fell most heavily in Aberdeen and the mails were delayed on the Tuesday. From the Wednesday until the Thursday afternoon a partial thaw relieved the situation throughout Scotland, but further frost on Thursday was followed on Friday 4 February by a gale from the east-north-east with heavy snow. A thaw followed and within a week transport services were restored and the temperature in Edinburgh was 51 O F .

THE WINTER OF 1826-27 How.did these conditions compare with the winter of 1827 which had been

cited as a bad one? It was on Thursday, 4 January 1827 that the Caledonian Mercury reported that ‘the weather which for some days previous to the close of the year, and on New Year’s Day, exhibited little of the appearance of winter, changed its character completely on Tuesday morning.’ The hard frost was followed by widespread snowfalls throughout Scotland, but until 25 January there was no serious disruption of traffic with occasional periods of snow and thaw. Two days of snow then made travelling difficult, especially in the Southern Uplands.

However, it was in March 1827 that the memorable snowstorms were experienced. On 5 March the Caledonian Mercury reported that ‘for a long series of years we have had no storm in the month of March at all so severe as the present.’ On Thursday, 1 March there were snow showers driven by strong winds. On the Friday morning there was a violent snow shower, ‘accompanied with a perfect hurricane’, which made walking in the streets of Edinburgh extremely difficult. Then on Saturday morning when the wind had dropped the snow began to fall most thickly. At about 11 pm an east wind blew; the snow continued to fall throughout the night until late on the Sunday morning. A hard frost that night ensured that the roads were firmly blocked. The snow in the streets of Edinburgh lay to a depth of from one to three feet; on the Saturday ‘at five o’clock before there was any wind to drift it, the depth was measured at thirteen inches. So great a quantity has not fallen in so short a period since the month of February 1799, when, as in the present case, the snow also commencefj on a Saturday: and in the month of June, much of it, which had been drifted into hollows and against walls, still remained undissolved.’

On Monday 5 March there was a ‘strong thaw’ which lasted in Edinburgh until the Tuesday evening. A north-easterly gale then sprang up accompanied by a prolonged snowfall. The storm had begun earlier to the south of Edinburgh and was particularly bad in the Southern Uplands. ‘Between Moffat and Dumfries the snow lay to a depth of four or five feet and, where drifted, to a much greater depth.’

At Glasgow the storm had been no less severe: the snow began to fall there on the Saturday at nine o’clock and ‘continued without intermission for 20 hours’. Just as transport services today are impeded by abandoned cars and

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lorries, similar problems were encountered in 1827. ‘The only mail coach which made good its journey (from Glasgow) was the Kirkcaldy one. She was much impeded by the numerous loaded carts which had been abandoned on the road between Falkirk and Glasgow.’ It was claimed that ‘about Paisley the average

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depth of snow in places where the wind had no effect was about three feet’. The Greenock Advertiser went on to tell of no fewer than four men who had perished in the snow. The Kelso Mail described how the roads round Kelso became completely blocked.

One of the most intriguing stories of stage coaches affected by this storm was that of the Ayr Telegraph which left Glasgow for Ayr at four o’clock on the Saturday afternoon with additional horses. ‘With great exertions they reached within four miles of King’s-well. There the snow was so deep, the night so stormy, and the horses so exhausted, that it was impossible to proceed . . . When it was found impossible to take the coach farther, the passengers agreed to remain while the guard and the driver went on with the horses to King’s-well, to try what could be done to extricate them.’ It transpired that the coach was left in a hollow and was soon covered with snow. The occupants grew worried lest they might not be able to extricate themselves. They opened the door on the lee side of the coach and went out by turns as often as necessary to maintain a path to the end of the drift so that they could set off in the proper direction in the morning. All but two of the passengers set out at daybreak and reached Floakside. Men and horses were sent to rescue those in the coach. ‘When found, they were reduced by cold and fatigue to a state of insensibility. They were immediately wrapt in blankets, placed on horses and conveyed to Floakside.’

During that same weekend the coach from Edinburgh to Aberdeen had a rough time between Queensferry and Kinross. That section took 25 hours to cover, ‘the road requiring to be cut all the way’. From Kinross northwards some 300 men were employed in clearing the snow and the coach eventually arrived in Aberdeen on the Tuesday morning, 43 hours late.

The storm had begun in Aberdeen on that same Saturday, 3 March, after two days of intensely cold weather, but not until three o’clock in the afternoon. The wind was east and east by north; it was said to have increased soon after it began ‘to a hurricane’.

Tales of woe were found in the Dumfries Courier including a private letter from Lockerbie which stated that ‘the guards of coaches found it impossible to arrive even on horseback. Over many a mile of road the snow is from five to ten feet deep. The depth of snow on the roads is greater than has been known for the last thirty years, and perhaps, in quantity, the fall has never been exceeded since January 18 14.’

THE WINTER OF 1822-23 Here reference was made to yet another year, but it is the turn now of 1823.

Frost had come to Edinburgh at the end of December 1822, and navigation was closed on the Union Canal. The Company had made an attempt to open it ‘by starting a boat with ten horses in order to break the ice, but were only able to proceed a short distance from town’. It was not until 16 January, after a spell of milder weather, that the snow began to fall and reports of blocked roads were received. The mail from London to Edinburgh was held up between Berwick

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and Cocksburnspath and the Carlisle mail was very late. The roads in the area of Moffat soon became impassable and the guard had to proceed on horseback. The roads around Kelso were blocked.

After a brief respite at the end of January, the weather on Monday, 3 February set in again more severe than ever. Roads in all directions from Edinburgh were once more impassable. ‘The present storm has scarcely been exceeded for severity by any within the memory of man.’ Reports from Glasgow told how ‘the mail to Edinburgh on 3 February, dispatched on horseback, was obliged to turn back’. The mail to Perth fared no better; neither the Irish mail nor that from Ayr reached Glasgow.

A week later conditions in the west had improved, but in the east roads were still snow-bound. The principal obstruction to the Carlisle road from Edinburgh was at Fushie Bridge. The Dumfries mail was obstructed at Penicuik where the snow lay deep. A gallant attempt was made to bring forward the mail from Glasgow to Edinburgh, but before it finally reached the city it was over- turned ‘owing to the deepness of the snow, between Gogar and Corstorphine’.

A week later, on Monday, 10 February, just after the roads had been cleared following a brief thaw, more snow fell. All the roads in the west and east were blocked again. Between Hawick and Selkirk the snow was lying generally about 10 ft deep; at some places between Inverkeithing and Kinross it was upwards of 20 ft deep. This time the Glasgow area was affected, but there was no snow in Bute and very little in Ayrshire.

At this time two shepherds with a flock of about 200 sheep perished in the snow near Bridge of Dyce and at Fettercairn a shepherd and 600 sheep were missing. ‘It is supposed they have perished in the storm.’ Some further falls accompanied by blocked roads and delayed mails were reported in February, but the worst of that year’s storms were over.

THE WINTERS OF 1813-14 AND 1798-99 It has already been noted that these severe storms were preceded by un-

usually mild conditions and the winter of 1813-14 proved to be no exception. In the Culedoniun Mercury on Saturday, 8 January 1814 it was recorded that ‘the mildness of the weather, during the greatest part of last month is almost unprecedented’. Bees were flying on 17 and 18 December 1813. Rooks in Dumfriesshire were fighting about nesting-places. On the 24th trout were rising to the fly. The thrush and blackbird were singing. ‘The common daisy was in as great profusion as in March . . . The primrose was full blown in some gardens. . . ’

It was on 28 December I8 I3 that temperatures fell below freezing point and by 8 January 1814 a reading of 14°F in Glasgow at 8 am was recorded. Reports from Perth spoke of low temperatures in the first week of January; in fact the frost in those few days had been so intense that the amount of ice floating in the river had ‘entirely interrupted the navigation’. By the end of the week snow was falling in Aberdeenshire and a few days later reports from Kelso spoke of heavy falls blocking the road to Edinburgh.

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By Monday, 17 January 1814 the storm had become so severe that the leader writer in the Caledonian Mercury expressed the opinion that the storm which had raged since the beginning of the month was the worst since the year 1795. A correspondent from Berwick expressed the same view, but no reference was made to 1799. After all the significant point about that year concerned the amount of snow which fell in a short time. The nature of the present weather was very different.

As usual Edinburgh escaped the worst of the snow. Dumfriesshire was badly affe’cted and the Ayr Telegraph was again in trouble, ‘stuck in a wreath about five miles on this side of Kilmarnock, where the mill lies. The coach has not attempted to go since; the mail has been forwarded by the guards on horse- back. The rider, with the bags for Gjrvan, attempted twice on Tuesday to proceed, but was obliged to return. On Wednesday he attempted it again, but going only a few miles his horse stuck in the snow; and after getting him dug out he pro- ceeded with the bag on foot to Maybole.’ The ice which had previously been mentioned floating on the Tay at Perth had now become a solid sheet from bank to bank. Leith harbour was affected too and it was only with the greatest difficulty that vessels could enter or leave. Before the thaw eventually came at the end of the month, it was said that the Clyde was never known to be so com- pletely frozen up as it was then. ‘The most rapid places were covered with ice and the ordinary fords were strong enough to admit loaded carts to pass on the ice. All the mills were stopped.’

From Kelso the continuing cold caused comment: ‘During the whole of last week (10 to 17 January) the temperature was uncommonly low; even when it snowed it was rarely above 24°F.’ Dumfries reported temperatures 25” below freezing and in Glasgow, on 17 January, ‘Yesterday morning the mercury in the thermometer a mile from town so low as 1”F, and by a gentleman whose accuracy can be fully relied on, in the fields, at a distance from houses, at 5” below zero, being the greatest degree of cold experienced here since 1780.’ It was not until Tuesday, 28 January that the thaw came, but not before disruptions were reported particularly from Berwick. Subsequently it was flooding that delayed the mails. There had been much less snow in the north of Scotland. On 21 January the news from Inverness was that ‘in this quarter the weather, though extremely cold, has been much more favourable than in some parts of the kingdom, the communications having been open in every direction throughout the winter’.

It was in February that the snow struck in 1799. In Edinburgh the first three days of the month were very cold, there was a north-easterly gale and a heavy fall of snow. Further falls during that first week led to delays in the mails from the south by the east coast route and from Aberdeen where snow had fallen heavily. This snow caused no disruption until a strong gale from the north-east and east sprang up and the roads were soon blocked. Very little snow fell in the west country.

On the night of Friday, 8 February there was a violent storm in Edinburgh. ‘Probably the oldest inhabitant of this city does not remember a more boisterous night. The wind blew very violent from the east, accompanied with a fall of snow,

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besides which it raised what was lying on the ground into large clouds in the air, driving it in all directions.’ Worse was to follow. The wind continued to blow throughout Saturday ‘ . . . sometimes from the north-east and sometimes from the south-east, excessively violent, accompanied with a great fall of snow, which in many parts was drifted into wreaths of amazing height; the frost was very intense; the streets in the city were in many places rendered impassable; and so very violent was the drifting snow that many merchants were obliged to shut their shops. All communication with the country was completely interrupted.’ In Banffshire the roads were also blocked and ‘all communication‘ with the country was shut up, until Tuesday and Wednesday last when, at the suggestion of the Deputy Lieutenant, the Banffshire and Strathalva and Boyne Volunteers, much to their credit, turned out with surprising zeal and alacrity and cleared the roads in the vicinity of the town, and opened the post road from Cullen to Turriff, being a distance of twelve miles’.

That storm was said in Banff to have been the ‘severest ever remembered in that part of the country’, while in Edinburgh ‘we experienced the severest weather that has been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitant’. But what about 1795?

THE WINTER OF 1794-95 During December 1794 there had been severe frosts and a certain amount of

snow. Skating had been possible on Loch Leven during the winter, but there was a report on Saturday 17 January 1795 that three people had been drowned there while skating. It was during that weekend that there was heavy snow in Edinburgh and district. By the end of the week it lay very deep and there was hard frost. Posts were arriving late in Edinburgh and this state of affairs continued until the end of the month. It was not until 25 January that snow fell at Dumfries that season. ‘The beginning of this winter was remarkably mild, but since Christmas there has not been so severe a winter in Scotland since the year 1740. It is however something singular that at a distance from Edinburgh the snow does not lie half so deep.’ Snow and frost continued into February. On 13 Feb- ruary ‘1 50 of Col Ferrier’s regiment and 100 Sutherland Fencibles with a number of workmen, were sent to clear snow on the roads betwixt the city and the coal hills from whence the city is supplied . . . The retail price as high as 1s 4d a cwt’.

Perthshire was hard hit. ‘The frost is so severe and the snow so deep about Doune and the neighbourhood that it is with difficulty people can pass between Callander and Dunblane; it is with much trouble the post can get through.’ Mr Gordon of Kenmore was feeding his sheep on fir trees, ‘which they prefer to the best hay. This certainly should be an encouragement to the planting of fir’. Indeed an unusual reason for the promotion of afforestation!

No specific mention of the weather in Aberdeen and other parts of Scotland was made in the newspapers in Edinburgh, but from other sources it was evident that conditions were bad in the north. There were heavy falls of snow in Aber- deenshire, the roads were blocked, and there were ‘no coals to be got. All the

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ships gone for coals froze in.’ It was not until 21 February that the first deliveries of coal reached the city. It was 20 March before the air grew milder in Aberdeen. Snow on the hills remained until the first week of April when there was ‘such a melting in the hills that the Don rose seven feet perpendicular’. That was not the end. On 15 May in the country the snow was lying a foot deep and the hills were covered. On 16 May there was more snow and hail, and it was ‘exceedingly cold’. Up country the snow lay very deep. Thereafter came a gradual improvement and no further reports of snow in quantity.

CONCLUSION

So much for the severe winters between 1795 and 1831. Those two were memorable years and of the intervening seasons four were mentioned as being particularly bad. Certainly our ancestors at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century had more snow and frost to contend with than we have had in recent years. One wonders when we shall have occasion to remark ‘Oh, conditions are much worse than they were even in ’63 !’

A COMPARISON OF BRITISH ISLES WEATHER TYPE FREQUENCIES IN THE CLIMATIC RECORD FROM 1781 TO 1971

By J. A. KINGTON Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

HE practicability of producing a series of daily synoptic weather maps for T a number of years in the 1780s has recently been demonstrated with the completion of the analysis and classification of charts from 1781 to 1784 and it is now possible to make a preliminary comparative study of the derived British Isles weather types and circulation patterns with those already classified and catalogued by Lamb from 1861 to 1971 (Lamb 1972).

DISCUSSION

The yearly and average frequencies of the weather types for 1781-84 are given in Table 1.

The mean value of 69 days per year for the westerly type over this four-year phase indicates a remarkably low frequency regime of the westerly type when compared with the average value of about 100 days per year during the period 1900 to 1950. However, since 1955 the frequency of the westerly type has again fallen; averaging 80 days per year in the 1960s and 66 days per year in the four- year phase 1968-71 (see Table 2). The lowest yearly value of the westerly type (56 in 1969) in the record from 1861 to 1971 is included in this recent four-year phase.

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