Roy - The runway surface repair on 05L/23R took place on Sunday January 17th. The runway was closed for approximately three hours around 09:00-12:00. However, the airport got 05R/23L snow-cleared, de-iced and open to traffic in around one hour. This took the strain until the original runway was fully serviceable again. 05's were in use at the outset, but IIRC a switch to westerly ops was arranged for 23L opening. As a result four inbound aircraft diverted away but three of these returned with pax after a 'splash-and-dash'. A long-haul Thomson de-planed at EMA presumably due to crew hours. The repairs were handled well, especially considering Sunday staffing availability. There was some dissatisfaction expressed over inaccuracy of re-opening estimates, but it is impossible for staff to predict exactly how long will be required for a unique repair.
This was a one-off issue, not a recurring problem. It was actually mentioned in the stats posting above to emphasise that January 2016 was one of the least-disrupted Winter months in memory. I can't recall any other episode of diversions away from MAN during that month.
If you are interested, there was some discussion of the repair on this thread around Jan 17th/18th, though looking back I think a couple of the posts have since been deleted.