For the past couple of weeks, the UK has been in the grip of Artic winds as cold, biting winds have been bringing snow, hail, thunder, lightning, and generally windy conditions to most of the UK. But is this really out of the ordinary for April?
A recent blog post by the Met Office puts things in perspective nicely with a visual representation of how often snow has occurred in April over the last 30 years… and it doesn’t make for a pleasant observation.
While I go and clean my rise tinted spectacles, it looks like, especially for the northern half of the UK, snow generally occurs for about a week out of the 30 blessed days of April, who knew? with an overall UK average of 2.3 days of snow. There are even records from 1981 showing blizzard conditions in late April with almost a foot of snow in places. Count yourself fortunate that we don’t have a repeat of that this year, though let’s see what the next few days bring :-)
So while we make think of Spring as warm bright mornings, sipping cups of tea while looking out at the dewy grass over fog laden valleys, well, I think I may go get some lens cleaner.
For the latest snow forecast for the UK, there is a new dedicated section on the General forecasts page, click here.
Cover photo by Icon Photography.