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Talk:Winter of 1962–1963 in the United Kingdom

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Anachronistic measurements

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Is it anachronistic for the article to discuss depths in metres and temperatures in C (as first choices) when 1963 England would have referred to feet and F? --Dweller 11:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not anachronistic because, although forecasts and press releases for the general public used Fahrenheit, I think the Met Office was already using metric units internally. Besides, I don't see any need for the artiicle to use units current in 1963, so long as the conversions to modern units are accurate. The article needs a lot of work for other reasons, though I've corrected some of the inaccuracies. JH (talk page) 19:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article title

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I'm not very happy with the title "1963 United Kingdom cold wave", since "cold wave" is very much an American term and one that is rarely if ever used in the UK. JH (talk page) 17:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that. I note that the article was originally at Winter of 1963, which is how it tends to be referred to colloquially. It was moved to "1963 United Kingdom cold wave" by a US-based editor, who may not have been aware of the fact that "cold wave" is not a common term in Britain. Big Freeze of 1963 also redirects here In any case, titles mentioning only 1963 are slightly inaccurate, since (as the article states) there was a major blizzard in late December 1962.
I suggest moving the article to Winter of 1962–1963, by analogy with the existing Winter of 1946–1947 article. Any thoughts or suggestions? Loganberry (Talk) 18:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your suggested title. Should it have an "ndash" rather than a hyphen, though? (As an aside, it's amazing how many cricket lovers are also interest in the weather.) JH (talk page) 21:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel particularly strongly about it myself, but the WP:YEAR guideline says: "Year ranges, like all ranges, are separated by an en dash." Given that, and the fact that the existing Winter of 1946–1947 article uses one, I think an en dash is the way to go, along with a redirect from the hyphenated version. (And isn't it just? Philip Eden, for one, who described the June 1975 snowfall as surely the most outrageous thing that June has ever done to us, meteorologically speaking".) Loganberry (Talk) 21:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Move now made, and double-redirects fixed. Loganberry (Talk) 21:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

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I don't see this article site any sources, things like the sea at Hearne Bay froze, and BBC News expressed fears that the straits of dover would freeze, who on the BBC News, I could phone the BBC and say that, and they could play it on the News, but it wouldn't make any more likely. The tempareture here the last couple of weeks has been down to -11 each night and hasn't gone above -6 in the day, and the river Clyde which is right by us hasn't froze. I would like the source so I could go and look this up. Considering Wikipedia's paranoia about sources (like on the apple 2's page it has that the apple 2 logo was made up of two square bracktes back to back IE ][, then qoutes a source for this to prove that the authors not lying, but directly above there is actually a photo of the logo). Yakacm (talk) 11:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the flag at the start of the article, making your point. I agree that it would be much better if everything had inline citations. It takes a lot to freeze a tidal stetch of river, which I imagine the Clyde probably is when it goes by you. Further upstream, beyond the tidal scour, a river will freeze more readily. JH (talk page) 18:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I remember this winter very well, and find nothing to complain of in the text. It is a valuable summary. I, too, would like to see better refs, but think they might be difficult to find and harder to sustain. Recently the two excellent pages about this winter, one of which was linked here, vanished from the met. office web site. There is a generic link to Mike Tullet's superb summary, and that can be taken as verifying most of the narrative. Robert EA Harvey (talk) 06:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also remember this winter - definitely the worst of my lifetime - and agree that the article is reasonable. I have added citations to some of the statements, using a BBC TV programme, which was first broadcast in 1963 and retransmitted 50 years later, as a source. I would have thought that the flag at the start of the article could now be deleted? AlanD1956 (talk) 13:30, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly Mike Tullet died a couple of years ago, and after 6 months or so his site was taken down, so I had to remove the link to it from the article. Realising that the site was likely to disappear after his death I had taken the precaution of downloading the material, which mostly consisted of each day's Daily Weather Summary from the Met Office, plus some news articles from the (then Manchester) Guardian. I'm reluctant to put the material up on my own site, because it seems to me that it might amount to a breach of the Met Office's and the Guardian's copyrights. When/if I have time, I'll see ehat I can dig out by way of citations for what's in our article. JH (talk page) 20:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

confusing details about 29/30th blizzard.

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The Article states that the blizzard affected the south west of England and Wales, it actually affected the whole south of England, including the South East and London. Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2008/09/04/bigfreeze63_feature.shtml 86.178.229.183 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it did. Living in Surrey at the time and already having a keen interest in the weather, I can still vividly remember it. It was probably worst in the SW, but it was sill pretty bad in the SE. JH (talk page) 09:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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The meaning of the expression "written in British English" on WP

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The new-as-of-today IP editor 86.162.37.29 has reverted an edit I made to the article on the basis that my parenthetical explanation of a British English term was inappropriate in an article written in British English. In short, the editor implies that, being written in British English, the article is not intended to be understood by non-British speakers of English. I disagree. Is there any editorial consensus we can build on this matter? I am sure the MOS has something to say on this, but I'm too lazy to look right now.

I have seen American English terms parenthetically explained in several articles written in American English. While I did not need the explanation, I appreciated its presence for the benefit of non-American English speakers. When I saw the term "fixtures" in the article, I had no clue whatsoever as to the meaning of the term, and had to look it up. I doubt very many Americans are familiar with this term; therefore, my edit could save them time and effort. WP editors are invited to weigh in.

As a postscript, I'll add that I believe the section header "Sports fixtures" is best off being replaced by a term like "Sports schedules", and if the term "fixtures" appears in the body of the section, I recommend it be given a parenthetical synonym at its first appearance.--Quisqualis (talk) 05:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to learn that the word "fixture" wasn't familiar in its sporting sense to American readers, but didn't have any problem with your edit. However your proposed heading of "Sports schedules" sounds rather odd to my British ear. I'm happy with your suggestion of adding a parenthetical synonym for "fixtures" in the body of the section, though. JH (talk page) 10:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@JHall: Yes, in the US, the term is unknown, and I am widely exposed to our media. Can you come up with a possible substitute for "Sports schedules" which does not involve the word "fixture"? You may feel free to make that edit yourself, at whatever risk to your Britishness!--Quisqualis (talk) 22:15, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to JHall for weighing in. It turns out the MOS supports my approach. This is the standard I see reflected in many, but not all, English WP articles I have read.--Quisqualis (talk) 22:36, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've come up with a version of the section title that hopefully avoids the problem: "Effect on sport". (NB: in BrE we generally use "sport" in this context rather than "sports".) JH (talk page) 09:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Thaw"

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Is it right to say there was a thaw in March? "Thaw", I think, means that the snow and ice melted, but I believe that they just disappeared, or sublimated. This in itself was remarkable. At time my office overlooked a large Army parade ground in London, and you could watch the frozen snow which had covered it for weeks vanishing as vapour into the atmosphere, not leaving moisture. Seadowns (talk) 13:34, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was certainly at least some sublimation of the snow. I suspect that, for that part of the snow that did melt, low humidity meant that the rate of evaporation of the moisture produced almost kept pace with the rate of melting. I think that the ice - as opposed to the snow - would have melted rather than sublimated, but I could be wrong. JH (talk page) 16:14, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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