By Tim Lambert
15 July is St Swithun’s Day. St Swithun was Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century. He asked to be buried outside the cathedral so people could walk over his grave and raindrops could fall on it. However, on 15 July 971, his body was reburied in the cathedral. According to legend St Swithun was not happy about it and it rained heavily that day. There is a superstition that if it rains on St Swithun’s day (15 July) it will rain for the next 40 days!
The largest amount of rain to fall in a single minute was on 4 July 1956, when 1.23 inches of rain fell in one minute on Unionville, Maryland, USA.
13 January is St Hilary’s Day. Traditionally, it’s the coldest day of the year.
On 24 November 1434, the River Thames in London froze. It was the first recorded instance of the river freezing.
Evangelista Torricelli was born on 16 October 1608. He invented the barometer in 1643.
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born on 24 May 1686. In 1724 he invented the mercury thermometer.
Anders Celsius was born on 27 November 1701. In 1741 he invented the Celsius or centigrade temperature scale.
On 7 December 1703, the Great Storm hit Britain. It was one of the worst storms in British history. At least 8,000 people were killed. It’s not certain how many ships sank in the storm, as many as 130. The Navy lost 13 ships. Thousands of buildings were severely damaged, and thousands of trees were lost.
On 5 January 1709, the Great Frost began. For months there was extremely cold weather in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people at least died. Some froze to death. But some places were cut off from supplies of food. Hunger and cold carried off thousands.
On 13 January 1806, Francis Beaufort wrote that he had invented a wind scale. A modified version of the Beaufort scale is still used to describe wind today.
Sometimes the River Thames in London froze and the ice was so thick they held fairs with stalls on it. They were called frost fairs. In 1688 Samuel Pepys wrote ‘A very violent frost began which lasted until 6 February. Its extremity was so great that the pools were frozen at least 18 inches thick. The Thames was so frozen that a great street from Temple to Southwark was built with shops and all manner things were sold.
On 1 February 1814, the last frost fair officially opened. People even walked an elephant over the ice. But the 1814 frost fair was the last.
On 27 December 1836, eight people were killed by a snow avalanche in the town of Lewes, Sussex, England. Others were buried by the snow but they managed to dig them out.
On 28 December 1879 a railway bridge over the River Tay in Scotland collapsed while a train was going across during high winds. 75 people died.
The first known photo of a tornado was taken in 1884.
On 11 March 1888, a severe blizzard hit the East Coast of the USA. About 400 people died.
On 8 September 1900 a hurricane killed at least 6,000 people in Galveston, Texas.
In July 1911 Britain sweltered in a heat wave. Temperatures reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit, 36.6 degrees centigrade.
On 24 July 1935 temperatures in Chicago reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit or 43 degrees Centigrade.
On 3 February 1947, the settlement of Snag in the Yukon recorded a temperature of -63 degrees centigrade. (-81 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest temperature ever recorded in North America.
On 15 January 1962 BBC weather forecasts included centigrade temperatures for the first time.
On 19 January 1977 snow fell on Miami, Florida the first time snow was recorded in the city.
On 13 December 2013, it snowed in Cairo, Egypt for the first time in 112 years.
December 2010 was the coldest in Britain for 100 years. On 1 December 2010, the Forth Bridge in Scotland closed for the first time since it opened in 1964 due to snow. On 2 December 2010, a temperature of -21 degrees centigrade was recorded in Scotland. Brrrr!
31 March 2013 was an Easter Sunday. It was the coldest Easter Sunday recorded in Britain with a temperature of -12.5 C recorded in the Highlands of Scotland.
The World’s coldest temperature was recorded in Antarctica on 20 July 1983, -89.2 degrees centigrade.
The highest recorded temperature on Earth was in Death Valley, California on 10 July 1913. It reached 55.7 degrees centigrade (134 degrees Fahrenheit).
