Snow? You've never had it so good!
Updated on 06 January 2010
Global warming means prolonged periods of snowy weather are becoming less frequent, writes Julian Rush.
It's one of those truisms of the media that the first snowflake in London triggers a near-hysterical response from news desks, who have totally ignored the fact that the rest of the country has been getting on with life in the snow for some time. It's no different this time.
I've been talking to my old friend Philip Eden, a meteorologist and avid collector of arcane weather statistics. We have short memories. The current winter weather started on December 17th and if you live north of the Peak District you've been suffering, and living with it, for three weeks now.
The last time we had a similar spell of cold weather was the winter of 1996/97, when it lasted three and a half weeks; it was a lot colder but there wasn't anywhere near as much snow.
This one is expected to go on for another week at least so. For a 4 week record Philip says we have to go back to 1986 when the whole country was snowed in from late January to early March.
And for the last time there was the combination of both very cold weather and lots of snow? That's 1981-82.
What's most interesting though is actually how infrequent the cold weather is. If Philip and I had been chewing the fat over the weather in 1981 (we probably did; we were both working at the London radio station LBC then), we'd have observed that severe cold spells hit at least once a decade. Now it's more like once every 15 or 20 years.
And that's the answer to all those climate sceptics who say "look, it's cold, there's no such thing as global warming." It's the frequency of weather events that indicate how the bigger picture, the climate, is changing. And cold spells are getting less frequent because the climate is warming.
