How much snow have you had this winter? Do you think you used to have more snow in the past? Well now you can check what the average annual snow quota is for your area, and compare with the rest of the UK.
Using 30 years of Met Office data, the mapping and analytics company Esri UK has created an interactive map, showing the average number of “snow days” – a day with greater than half of the ground covered in snow at 9am – for locations across the UK.
Topping the bill for snowy days is the Cairngorms national park in Scotland, which recorded an extreme 135 snow days in 1986, and is coated with snow for nearly a quarter of the year (86 snow days) on average.
At the other end of the scale, the Isles of Scilly have less than one snow day a year, and central London has three. But underlying the 30-year average is a clear warming trend.
“Our climate is changing. The UK’s 10 warmest years on record in a series from 1884 have occurred since 2002, and we do see this overall trend in the number of days of snow falling and snow lying,” says Mike Kendon, a climate information scientist at the Met Office National Climate Information Centre.
