Weather hysteria

[VirtueClapper83]

To not get the media’s obsession at the minute with the current cold spell 🤷‍♂️
I get the emphasis on the weather with the current energy situation, but we live in a country that experiences cold weather at this time of year regularly. The ‘Beast from the east’ didn’t get this much airtime so wtf?

Is it?

I though UK typical had its coldest months in Jan and Feb, and that snow and persistent sub-zero temperatures this early was not common

[dog with bone]

For info various airlines, including Ryanair, had multiple flights were going into/out of Stansted over that time period shown in that snapshot that looks like a FR had scheduling issue (yes possibly a knock on from Sunday), rather than a consequence of continuing bad weather or airport closures...

[/dog with bone]

Why are there so many threads on Mumsnet where posters get so much satisfaction in belittling people talking about what's in the news? Why does it always have to be "hysteria", "frothing", "grief vulturing"?

Yeah, it's really weird. I think these posters imagine they're above the fray and can 'see through it all' but really it just makes them appear vaguely paranoid.

I'm in Scotland and this is semi-normal here, although still very cold. But it's London so we all need to hear about it.

Are the media mentioning that it's below zero & a lot of people can't afford to heat their houses?
Scandalous.

Succinct but true.

Did anyone have a coat on? Or was it just jumper time?

"The ‘Beast from the east’ didn’t get this much airtime so wtf?"

Yes it did, it was everywhere.

To your OP:

1. the British are obsessed with the weather
2. It is unusual weather for this time of year, especially in the south, but everywhere else too. That has led to difficult conditions, especially combined with strikes and cost of heating, and the media loves to drum up some drama.

It's actually quite interesting that some misremember the Beast From The East not being a major news story.

Feels like a small example of how people make up their own facts to confirm an existing bias.

It makes good print/tv and I think they are worries if they don't warn people they would be come back! A case of better to be safe than sorry I think.
Depends what else is happening as well, a slow news day can be filled with pretty pictures of snow and snowmen, footage of people slipping and car crashes!

It most definitely IS unusual to get weather this cold, this early in the winter. Everyone locally is saying things like "this is February weather". Snow is more common at Easter than at Christmas. Average temp in Glasgow in December is 2c - 5c, not -6. The last time we had a cold snap this bad in December was 2010, it snowed on 30th November and didn;t stop until Christmas eve. Schools off, everyone's pipes froze, -20c overnight.

So it's a less than once in a decade thing.

The media always has to have something to scare people with

Covid
Food shortages
Fuel shortages
Energy costs rising
Cold weather
Strep A

All those things are happening/did happen. You don't seem to undertand what the word 'scare' means.

CharityShopChic, yes, the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 were really bad, especially 2009/10.

The issue seemed to be days of heavy snow then a long cold, clear snap so everything froze and stayed that way.

We were in the Borders and the ploughs were dumping snow in the rivers because they'd run out of room to pile it up. Our lowest temperature was -16 and most of our neighbour's pipes froze (Victorian houses). We spent Christmas with family in the same town and dragged all the presents/ food up the very steep hill to theirs in a granny style shopping trolley because the roads were impassable.

When it eventually started to thaw, there were so many people about locally with arms and legs in plaster casts, having slipped on the ice and snow.

Beast from the East, we had 16 inches of snow virtually overnight (know this because DH measured it with a tape measure ).

JackieDaws

You sound like a Daily Mail reader, a bit gammon Brexiteer.

Really? That's quite strange, because I always used to buy the Guardian, vote Labour and I voted to remain in the EU. And the Daily Heil is the prime example of using overblown terminology, regarding the weather.

PenguinsOnToast

Did anyone have a coat on? Or was it just jumper time?

Shockingly, a number of people were clad in long sleeved apparel!

Hyperbole because it’s affected the south east.

To be fair no-one in the north would notice if trains stopped working.

Yes, true, but why be fair?

Yes absolutely this. They want to feel superior and seem to almost hope people will panic so they can jump in and be the voice of reason.

I've seen very little hysteria. There has been a fair amount of traffic disruption (I know people stuck on the motorway or unable to travel, stuck abroad etc.) People have been stating the fact that their lives have been temporarily disrupted and that this weather is fairly unusual for this time of year and poses a problem for emergency services etc. That's not hysteria. That's just what's happening.