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Weather : past adverse weather in Birmingham

Lady Penelope said:
Can anyone tell me how long the 1976 heatwave lasted? I was working in an office with huge windows at the time and it seemed never ending. However, I had saved to take my little girl on holiday to Paignton. It rained nearly every day of our holiday!
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According to a local farmer 81 years young, 'us ees een thees yer eatwave until the end of July bye (boy).
Bob
 
Just back from 3 weeks in Brum. Probably the most uncomfortable three weeks I have ever spent. TO BLOODY HOT!!! I never ever thought that I would have to complain about the weather been TO HOT!!! NO AIR CON Only in the rental car. Everyone suffering. But had a grand time with all the SWEATY relatives. Back in Parker Colorado 95f BUT every one including us has AIR CON, rode my bike 50 miles with natures air con the wind!!! felt good
 
Hope some of it sticks around for when I visit the UK late Sept / Early October...we've had temps in the 30's for the past couple of weeks or so and looks like continuing, but like the oldbrit we have AC, so no problem!

Dave A
 
WP_20180709_001.jpg

On the left is the outside temperature, on the right, the inside, oh the pleasures of air conditioning ;)
Dave A
 
dave the inside temp is how i would like the outside to be here...that would be just about right for me...i remember the 76 heatwave very well. water turned off and had standpipes in the road which was turned on at certain times to go and fetch our water..

lyn
 
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oldbrit said:
Just back from 3 weeks in Brum. Probably the most uncomfortable three weeks I have ever spent. TO BLOODY HOT!!! I never ever thought that I would have to complain about the weather been TO HOT!!! NO AIR CON Only in the rental car. Everyone suffering. But had a grand time with all the SWEATY relatives. Back in Parker Colorado 95f BUT every one including us has AIR CON, rode my bike 50 miles with natures air con the wind!!! felt good
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l know what your talking about.. living this far south in Texas we could not survive without A/C...i remember going home one summer and it hit the 90f every day , i was miserable no A/C just had to grime and bear it...the places we did go said they had A/C but it was,nt like we have in Texas, every one was sunbathing but not me l don,t even do that in texas..l think this must have been late 80s or early 90s
 
As I get older, my tolerance zone gets smaller. A few years ago we had 46C and it didn't bother me a bit. Now 34C the other day and I just wished it would rain! My ideal would be 23C without wind, but everyone is different.

Maurice
 
I suppose one type of adverse weather we will not see again in Brum are the extremely thick fogs or smogs of the 1940s/1950s. Visiblity was often down to 15 feet and younger members of my family don't believe me when I tell them how bad they were.

Some memories I have are ...
A 1940s foggy Christmas day when I took my new toy lorry outside to play with it and could not see houses across the road.

Foggy driving technique in the 1950s when I sat in the left hand seat with my head out the window looking down at the kerb and steering with my right hand on the wheel while my mate 'driving' controlled the accelerator, clutch, and brake.

On very foggy days travelling home from Handsworth Technical School the buses had to be guided by someone walking in front of them so were not much use but trams were better in fog. I remember a slow ride on a No 5 tram from Soho Road to Six Ways and then a No 6 to Perry Barr followed by a long walk to Great Barr.
 
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The last fog I can remember was probably 30 years ago. The conditions must have been just right (or wrong as the case may be). It was Bonfiire night and very misty. We only had to drive about a mile but the fog was really thick and driving was difficult. I suppose it was the combination of weather conditions and bonfires.

I remember the real fogs in the 1950's when you had to have a hankie over your nose and mouth and they went black. Awful.
 
One thing I haven't seen since 1976 is the swarms of ladybirds that occurred in southern coastal areas. I remember going down to Hove, near Brighton, and walking along the Prom and crushing probably hundreds or thousands of ladybirds. Some estimates were that over 23 billion ladybirds invaded southern and eastern coastal areas. Here is a BBC report from 2016 asking if the 1976 invasion could occur again. Dave.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35603972
 
Anne Jessel said:
Snow Storm 60's

I remember the one in the early sixties 1963ish?
I was a Staff Nurse, and I had to travel from home (West Brom) to the General Hospital each day to work, and it was impossible.
They had to place me in the Nurses "Sick" room in the Nurses Home for a few days to be sure I was on duty by 7.30pm most mornings, until such the buses started to run regularly again.
I liked the snow, but didn't like not being able to get home.
Anne
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I remember the winter of 1963, I was 13 my mum and I walked up our road to go to the service station to get paraffin for a heater in the bathroom to help stop the water pipes freezing up. It was evening outside but it was earily light because of the snow and there was no traffic about , It is one of those memories I remember so clearly.
Wendy
 
I remember the 63 freeze too. Woke up in the morning to a foot or so of snow. Great fun for the first few days, but then it just dragged on and on. A burst pipe in the outside (and only) loo, and putting old overcoats on the bed to keep warm. Milk frozzen sold in the bottles, the tops on the ends of long storks of ice.
 
At ten I was still at the junior school. Not being tall for my age I found my self wading trough snow at time waist high and up to my arm pits in others. Country areas were difficult, the towns fared better. Of course those were the days when few excuses - other than illness - could be made for not going to school. Besides walking was the only option: no being taken by car or bussed then. ;) Birmingham was fortunate in that most bus depots had buses that were used as snow ploughs which did clear the roads for workers able to get to the jobs. Buses and trams were, in the main, how they got there.
As roads, at the time, were not the car parks they are today, ploughs got through easily.
 
Bob Davis said:
I

I have just noticed that regardless of the depth of snow we all still went to school. Aged 10 in 1947 with a 7 year old sister we walked from the Oscott pub on Chester Road to Green Lanes school and at times the snow was higher than we were, there was a path had been cut on the pavement very narrow but usable. Very little transport of course, no parents accompanying us because they were also struggling to get to work. Nowadays two snowflakes, the schools close, public transport ceases....when did the hardy souls of the forties and fifties (short on coal and food still severely rationed) become the wimps and wussess of the 21st century? Also I have noticed that while the poor little over protected darlings of today travel by car to school regardless of social status, whether we were state or private, grammar or secondary the only way to school was under our own steam, bus, bicycle or shankses pony, not fond parents dropping us off at the school gates and there were no free bus passes as far as I know, but can anyone correct me on that?

Bob
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Hi Bob,
You are correct , rain, hail or shine I walked to school, I never had the luxury of being driven to school it was really an accepted norm that as a kid you walked to school wasn't it? I even walked home for lunch when I was at junior school and back again for afternoon lessons and I never batted an eyelid... it was accepted I would do it!!
I dont live in uk now but my sister tells me a smattering of snow and everything comes to a standstill and the schools are closed!!
We must have been tuff little tackers haha.
Wendy
 
wendylee said:
Hi Bob,
You are correct , rain, hail or shine I walked to school, I never had the luxury of being driven to school it was really an accepted norm that as a kid you walked to school wasn't it? I even walked home for lunch when I was at junior school and back again for afternoon lessons and I never batted an eyelid... it was accepted I would do it!!
I dont live in uk now but my sister tells me a smattering of snow and everything comes to a standstill and the schools are closed!!
We must have been tuff little tackers haha.
Wendy
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There was no such thing as schools closing back then...although we prayed they would, it never happened. In 1947, I was 7 and went to Cowper St school. The ONLY way to go was on foot...there were no bikes either, no one could afford them. I also, no longer live in the UK and this wimping of the schools is just the same here in Canada, schools close for the slightest adversity.
Dave A
 
I don't remember ever having a day off from school because of snow. In the winter of 1947 I remember trudging to Aldridge Rd school through two foot of snow with a blizzard blowing across the fields. The heating in the school had failed so we had to wear our overcoats in class. I also thought it was normal to have frost on the inside of bedroom windows.
 
))Was clearing the snow in 47 outside my Gran's in Goodrick St .I was 8.Suddenley up the street came my uncle Frankie home after being Demobed from the Navy,Kitbag on his shoulder.Every time I see Gene Kelly and Donald O'Conner in Navy films it reminds of him.(especially O'Conner he was the image of him)
 
Morturn said:
I remember the 63 freeze too. Woke up in the morning to a foot or so of snow. Great fun for the first few days, but then it just dragged on and on. A burst pipe in the outside (and only) loo, and putting old overcoats on the bed to keep warm. Milk frozzen sold in the bottles, the tops on the ends of long storks of ice.
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Hi Morturn,

I remember the 1963 freeze very well, I celebrated my 11th birthday in late February with snow still on the ground and drifts of over three feet tall in the back garden. If memory serves the next freeze that followed was in 1981.

Lozellian.
 
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