Snow in Yorkshire: Worst snow storms in the region’s history over the last 77 years including the Big Freeze of 1963

A winter storm is made up of wind coinciding with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, a mixture of snow and rain, or freezing rain.

They are formed when moist air rises up into the atmosphere, creating low pressure near the ground and clouds up in the air.

There have been many snow storms in history that have severely affected people and services in Yorkshire.

Worst snow storms in Yorkshire history

The winter of 1947

The event is also known as the ‘Long Winter’, this winter brought exceptional snowfall that cut off thousands of people for days. Snow reached up to seven metres.

It resulted in extreme hardships financially and living conditions were affected in a country still recovering from the Second World War.

From March 17 to 18, 1947, the suburbs of West Bridgford and Beeston were especially affected.

A couple of days later, in the lower tidal reaches of the river, the peak of the flood combined with a high spring tide to flood villages and 2,000 properties in Gainsborough.

River levels dropped when the floodbank at Morton breached, resulting in the flooding of farmland in the Trent valley. Selby was also severely affected with 70 per cent of houses being flooded with more than 100,000 properties were affected by the flooding and the Army worked to prevent the spread of the floodwater, particularly at pumping plants and power stations.

The big freeze of 1963

This was considered one of the coldest witners on record in the UK as temperatures plummeted and lakes and rivers began to freeze over.

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On January 20, 1963, 283 workers had to be rescued by RAF helicopters from Fylingdales, where they were snowed under for several days.

A blizzard brought record low temperatures, with 200 main roads impassable and 95,000 miles of road snowbound.

The winter of 1976-1977

There was heavy wet snow that fell in early December, mid December and mid January.

Mid January saw six inches of snow settle at times.

The winter of 2009-2010

This was a two-month period of snowfall and low temperatures which caused transport disruption, school closures and power outages.

The night of December 2 and 3 was especially cold with minimum temperatures across the UK widely -5C to -10C and -20C was recorded at Ravensworth, North Yorkshire, the first time -20C had been recorded in England since January 1987.