AFTER a good few years when a snowflake was a rarity, Dorset and the New Forest have seen some heavy snowfall in recent winters.

Bournemouth Echo:

The settled snow at Sandbanks looking out to Brownsea Island looked more like part of the Arctic in 2009  

One difference was that this time the Daily Echo was online to publish up-to-the-minute information about road and school closures.

There have also been more surprising weather events.

Bournemouth Echo:

In the summer of 2011, sudden torrential rain flooded parts of the Wessex Way, Castle Lane and Bournemouth town centre.

Bournemouth’s Lower and Central Gardens flooded on the first day of the town’s Air Festival as the Bourne Stream burst its banks.

Bournemouth Echo:

Bournemouth's Lower Gardens in 2011

The winter of 2013-14 has seen plenty of flooding, of course. Meteorologists have noted that has rarely rained very heavily – it has just rained for a very long period of time.

Between 3.23am on December 23 and 1.38am on December 24, there was a total of 50.6mm of rainfall, yet it never came down heavily enough for the town’s rainfall gauges to sound.

Bournemouth Echo:

Wessex Way near Blackwater was flooded after storms in 2009

See more nostalgic pictures of extreme weather in Dorset over the years in a gallery

Do you have a nostalgic weather picture to share? email it to digital@bournemouthecho.co.uk