The long-term averages for days with “snow cover” everywhere in the British Isles, even places as far south as Bournemouth, register at least one day of significant snowfall in each of the three winter months. Towards the end of the last century the number of snow days per year begins to drop, but everywhere at least one period of snowy weather was expected each winter.
This winter in Bedfordshire – 45 miles north of London – where snow was once a regular occurrence, not even a snowflake has been spotted. In the last ten weeks there has been only a handful of frosts and there is nothing in the forecast to suggest that the rest of February will be any different. The long-term trend, even in Scotland, has been for Februaries to warm up the fastest of the three winter months. In middle England most spring flowers seem to think the winter is already over.
All this will be good news for one veteran forecaster at the Met Office who once confided that his most difficult decisions involved advising local authorities when to deploy gritting lorries. A calculation half a degree out and expected rain turned into a heavy snow and disruption. Over-caution meant blame for copious amounts of salt and grit washed down the drains.
