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LMS Route: The Shakespeare Route

Kineton Station: smjk205

A pair of unidentified ex-LMS 4F 0-6-0 locomotives are seen clearing snow in Kineton station during the winter in early 1947

A pair of unidentified ex-LMS 4F 0-6-0 locomotives are seen clearing snow in Kineton station during the winter in early 1947. The strangest thing about 1947, was the first part of the winter was very mild, with only 2 failed cold spells...The weather in fact, turned unseasonably mild for a time. On the 15th January, the temperature in Leeming, North Yorkshire, didn't fall below 11.7 C, and rose to 14 C the next day in parts of Norfolk, Herefordshire, and Flintshire. This soon changed. An area of High Pressure transferred north, from France, on January 18th. Two days later, the anticyclone was centred over North -West Norway. It then drifted South -East to Southern Scandinavia, and dominated the UK weather for the rest of the month. The first frost came on the 20th, and the first snowfall on the 23rd, where heavy snow was recorded in the South West of England, even the Scilly Isles. Many villages became cut off and isolated.

The cold and snowy weather continued with any breaks lasting only a very short time, before the next onslaught. On no day in February 1947 did the temperature at Kew Observatory top 4.4C, and only twice in the month was the night minimum temperature above 0 C. The mean maximum temperature for the month was 0.5C (6.9C below average) and the mean minimum was -2.7 C (4.6 C below average). On 26 of the month's 28 days, snow was lying at 09:00 am south of a line from The Wash to the River Dee, mean maximum temperatures were everywhere more than 5.5 C below average and, in some places, more than 7 C below average. Mean minimum temperatures were more than 4 C below average everywhere in the south and south-west of England, and almost 6 C below average in some places. February 1947, was the coldest February on record in many parts of the UK, and has been compared with 1814 (January) for its persistent snowfalls, combined with low temperatures.

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