This week we wanted to take a look back at a major weather event that shook our area almost three decades ago.

Back in February, 1996, 27 years ago, the 'big freeze' struck Whitehaven and the surrounding areas.

Overnight, the area became submerged in several feet of thick snow and the whole town seemed to grind to a halt.

When we look back at the photos from the time it is truly unbelievable to see how much Whitehaven was affected, there does not seem to have been a snow storm to this scale in the years since.

Roads were completely blocked around the area with hundreds of cars gridlocked for a number of miles in and out of the town.

Shops all around the town were forced to close and public transport stopped due to disruption to the rail lines and main roads caused by the snow.

The disruption continued for a number of days with emergency services responding to a number of calls from people in need within the community.

Despite the bad weather many schools were open when the storm began leaving a number of pupils stuck at schools in various places in Copeland.

One of the biggest decisions that was made because of the snow storm was that Sellafield would close its doors until the weather became more habitable.

They were concerned that emergency services would have limited access to the site and took their employees safety into account.

However, due to the conditions many workers were unable to return home and were forced to stay overnight in parts of the site.

The photos from our archives show how powerful the snow storm was and the disruption that was seen by those in the Copeland area.

It is both fascinating and worrying to see the impacts that weather can have on communities like our own. We hope that we will not see a repeat of this some 27 years on.