On March 28, 1916, exactly 100 years to the day before storm Katie slammed into the south of England, the country was hit by an enormous blizzard. At the time, it was described as the worst since 1881 and 1889.
Telegraph and telephone wires were blown down cutting all communication and trains arrived hours late. A service from Glasgow due at Luton at 7am arrived at 4pm. In Leicestershire, the train had stopped for five hours because telegraph poles had fallen on a goods train and blocked the line.
The heavy steam trains were able to push through the snow but the drivers had to stick their heads out of their cabs to see the hazards ahead. One driver said: “From Northampton right as far as Tring we did a crawl act. Not a wire was standing. It was dangerous to look out, and me and my mate had to be pretty nippy when we did put our heads out in case the broken wires should tear our eyes out.”
A train got stuck on the Dunstable to Leighton Buzzard line at Blows Downs and the passengers “were obliged to walk back the five miles to Dunstable Church station through the snow.”
The ferocity of the two storms seems very similar and the amount of precipitation too – with two feet of snow in a few hours in 1916. The main difference appears to be temperature, about 8C warmer in 2016.
Scientists will tell you that any kind of weather can still occur with climate change but we would all be astonished now if two feet of snow paralysed the country at the end of March.
