No cool stories to be told about the big freeze of 2018
There comes a point in every winter which reminds me of the PG Wodehouse story Romance at Droitgate Spa, where a group of invalids sit around in brine baths competitively comparing their respective ailments.
Discussions about cold weather often prove much the same as those concerning an ingrown toenail where, tough as it is, seemingly everybody has a story of a time when they have stoically endured far worse.
You know, that February half term in a cottage near Inverness when the heating pipes exploded, or the holiday to Finland where reindeer breath froze like mushroom clouds in the air.
Or that well-rehearsed story which is 55 years old this winter: the fabled Big Freeze of 1963.
This week’s icy weather has seemingly sharpened the collective memory – and tales of the coldest winter for 200 years have once more been doing the rounds.
On January 23 that year -8.4C (17F) was recorded in Hay-on-wye during the day. Snow fell in Britain every day in January and for all but four days of February. It was so cold, they say, that in parts of the country the sea froze.
How does winter 2018 shape up? Well, I’m afraid the current frosty spell is piffling in comparison. The provisional mean UK temperature for January is 4.1C (39F) (roughly 0.4C or 0.7F above average). Most parts of the UK have experienced near or average rainfall and sunshine for this time of year. Snowfall, while “significant”, certainly didn’t break any records.
Things look bitter for all this weekend, with hill snow in the north and wintry showers elsewhere. The ongoing cold snap looks likely to persist until the end of the month.
Still, unless something dramatic happens over the next few week,s it seems unlikely that decades from now, people will sit about telling tales of the great winter of 2018.
Joe Shute