Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Deep freeze UK
» -22.9C is coldest February for 66 yrs » Even Arctic swans decide to turn back
BRAEMAR Good weather for building igloos
THE UK has had its coldest February day since 1955 with a temperature just short of -23C.
The recommended temperature for a domestic freezer is -18C.
BBC weatherman Simon King called the reading at Braemar in the Scottish Highlands “incredible”.
The -22.9C, recorded at 8.13am yesterday, was the absolute lowest since December 30, 1995, when it hit -27.2C at Altnaharra, Sutherland.
Fifteen UK weather stations recorded their lowest-ever February temperatures. Snow is forecast in Northern Ireland tomorow but the next coldest place after Scotland was Ravensworth, near Richmond, North Yorks, at -13.1C.
A flock of Bewick’s swans migrating to the Arctic returned to Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Glos.
A spokesman said: “With the easterly wind against them for their migration to Russia they are very sensible to sit this one out.” James Beaumont, 33, filmed a cup of hot water instantly turning to ice as he threw it into the air near Braemar. Scot Rail showed large blocks of ice forming under a high-speed train.
Snow is forecast tomorrow in Wales, North West England and Scotland with up to six inches on higher ground.
The Met Office warned: “It is likely to spread east with some accumulations in places and icy stretches of roads and pavements.”
THE original site of Stonehenge has been discovered in Wales – 140 miles from Salisbury Plain where it has stood for 5,000 years.
For 400 years the stones formed a circle in Pembrokeshire, before being dragged to their current site in Wiltshire by neolithic people migrating east around 3000BC.
The discovery at Waun Mawn was led by archaeologist Professor Mike Parker
Pearson, who had long held the theory that
Stonehenge bluestones had started life as a monument in Wales.
The hunt began over
10 years ago but Waun
Mawn was overlooked as it seemed less promising than other sites. Mike, 63, says: “We did a bit of geophysics, and we got nothing. So we walked away from it.”
Years later, after other sites turned up nothing, researchers were on the point of giving up when they returned to the “small and unremarkable” marshy site in the Preseli Hills.
The professor says: “It was the last throw of the dice. We were in the last chance saloon.” The dig was long and hard, with terrible weather and a tired and disappointed team. But then the dig leader Dave Shaw called Mike, saying: “I’ve found a stone hole.”
It was the first of many. “And better than that,” says Mike, “they’re in a circle and we actually find an entrance, a pair of stones arranged like gun sites.” The circle was the same dimensions as that at Stonehenge. Now everything hinged on the stone samples Dave had found in those holes predating 3000BC. Tests finally proved they dated from 3300BC. Mike says: “It’s so lucky we didn’t give up.” He says the 80 stones would have been dragged in a “travelling party” by crowds of people, many joining in along the route, all feasting and drinking.
The story is told in a BBC documentary tonight presented by ex-time Team star Prof Alice Roberts, who says it is “the most exciting archaeology around Stonehenge that’s happened during my lifetime”. Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, BBC2, tonight, 9pm.