Kentish Express Ashford & District
January, when temperatures plummet
So far it’s been a fairly mild winter but all that could be about to change as we edge towards 2017. Don’t panic but January is statistically the month when we are expected to experience the coldest temperatures (maybe not that surprising as it’s the middle of winter!) according to new research (oh how Nuts and Bolts loves a bit of new research).
Wood burning stove specialists, Glowing Embers (glowingembers.co.uk) have painstakingly researched the last 30 years of weather data to find out exactly when the coldest day of the year is likely to be, allowing you to either plan to stay indoors all day or go out and throw the white stuff at each other and build a snowman.
So statistically, the coldest day of 2017 in Kent, they say, will be January 19 when temperatures will plunge (temperatures always plunge when they go down and soar when they go up, don’t they?) to –5.4C across South East England that night.
Meanwhile the average coldest temperature throughout the country that day is predicted to be a bracing –6.9C.
The coldest part of the UK, on average, is set to be shivering Scotland, with the mercury there plummeting down to –8.9C; and their average coldest day is only four days into the new year, on January 4.
The Scots also take the prize for the coldest date ever on record, a positively glacial –27.2C in Braemar, Aberdeenshire on 10 January in 1982.
All we can say is ... roll on the spring!
As we all know, the UK voted earlier this year to leave the European Union – a victory for the Brexiteers.
So while the majority of voters opted to distance ourselves from Europe sometimes that just isn’t possible.
That was proved by regular contributor Ted Prangnell who took this photograph in Folkestone recently of the French coast.
Ted said: “It was taken recently on one of those days when France had drifted a bit closer to us, and why not?”
Although France is only 20 odd miles as the crow flies from Kent this picture certainly makes the distance seem less. It’s always quite sad when a shop in Ashford closes, especially if job losses are involved or there’s no likelihood of anyone occupying the premises it occupies – as has been the case with the County Square Bhs store that bit the dust back in the summer and remains depressingly empty.
But there’s a bit of extra sadness when a shop like Mothercare which has been in Ashford – actually in the same premises – for more than 40 years announces it is going next March.
Mothercare has been one of the ‘faces’ of many high streets for many years but times change and the company is moving more towards online sales and out of town shops. So let’s just hope that when it closes the premises are quickly filled. The Nuts and Bolts team wish all our readers a very happy Christmas.