SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

As I sat shivering today with my central heating on full blast I started to think about the temperature extremes that Leeds has experienced down the years.I can remember some warm winters and some cold summers but not in any great detail.Have we any meteorologists among us? I'm sure there must be some weather related anecdotes to cheer us up.One of mine, for instance, relates to a holiday : in May 1975 we went to Austria for a week and took summer clothes only. It snowed or rained ALL the time we were there. We hardly left the hotel at all.It was the worst holiday that I've ever had in my life. When we got back home to Leeds the long heatwave of that summer had already begun! JD

A few years ago I was planting my spuds and got sun burned. The next year I was driven of the plot by horizontal sleet.

Don't want to be a party-pooper, but in 10 days time I make it mid-summer's day.Looking a bit back-endish....

A first for me the other week was cutting the grass when it started snowing!I remember it snowing in June - but that wasn't in Leeds, it was in Buxton.

A sage told me many years ago about a 19th. century Scottish met. man named Buchan who, based on statistics he had gleaned over the years, formed a list of dates which became known as "Buchan's Cold Spells".For your delectation I will now llst them for you, 7-14 Feb, 11-14 Apr, 9-14 May, 29 June-July 4, 6-11 Aug, 6-13 Nov."Buchan's Warm Spells"12-15 July, 12-15 Aug, 3-14 Dec.It's my humble opinion he didn't know what he was talking about, so keep on looking out of the window if you want to know what the weather is like.P.S. Stay dry.

Apparently this cold weather is cos the jet stream over the UK has buckled and is now letting all the cold air, from the colder climes, down onto us.

I remember walking down Albion Street in June or July of 1976 during the long heatwave, and there was a plague of ladybirds. They were flying around everywhere and were all over the pavements so you couldn't avoid them!Albion Street probably didn't look too dissimilar to how it looks at the moment, as they were building the "new" Boots as part of Leeds Shopping Plaza and I remember seeing all the yellow and grey insulation being installed, which is currently once more on show!

Crumbs Tasa!That was a blast from the past. I was going to college back then.    

Jogon wrote: Crumbs Tasa!That was a blast from the past. I was going to college back then.     I remember it because it was my O Level year, and revising in that heatwave was awful!