winter is cold - SHOCK!!!!!!!!!!

[SheherazadetheGoat]

i watched the news with growing incredulity last night. it is january, the temperature is below freezing. i am on the same latitude as oslo, how is this news?

I have been wondering if the UK had been transported to the Tropics without me realising - seemed the only explanation for the "Blimey, there's frost on the ground!" reactions.

be fair - it was -7 at 8.30am yesterday where I was - now that is a little unusual

-9 this morning in SW France, it's unusual. dh has just skided off te road an smashed his car up, numpty!

Seems like we're having part of a normal winter to me.

it is around 10 degrees colder than normal so i think it does make it newsworthy

Seems like a normal winter to me to

too

it's quite unusual for the temperature to stay below freezing throughout the day in the south, only people from the Extreme Frozen North would think otherwise

It seems way colder to me that its been for years and years... It was -11.5 here yesterday morning [brrrrrrrrr]

Sheherazade, I was about to start a thread about the exact same thing...
It is a normal winter. Previous winters have not been too normal. I can't stand how this is being turned into a national crisis with sentences such as: "Mr X has a thermometer on his front door and he says it has not got above 0 degrees for the past 2 weeks"
So flipping what!!
Okay, highlight the plight of the elderly, ill and disabled so more people are aware how they are left to suffer without heating adn a government not doing enough to help.
But a news report about 'the roads are icy adn the lake is partially frozen over' is just madness.
And it makes the nation look like wimps who cannot cope with a bit of decent weather..

No, I am from the South (although originally Dutch) and I am not at all surprised it is staying around freezing during the day. That is what winters were originally like isn't it?

my washing machine outlet pipe has frozen with a load of washing on it

At present temperatures here are -12°C, on one weather report, the weatherman said 'it's cold for this time of year'

oh don't spoil it, it might be the next Ice Age and any minute now a smilodon might slink about the bottom of the garden, looking for a spare woolly mammoth to eat

oh look who is peeping out of the shed! hello!

oh bless, I want him for a pet
Acutally, my (brown) cocker spaniel is overdue a haircut and looks a bit like that ...

It is unusual for current trends though isn't it? Also the Met Office forcast a slightly above average temp for this winter back in the autumn so clearly that was way off the mark.

However, all this disruption and closure of things looks a bit silly especially when the images that went with it on the telly showed only a smattering of snow and clear roads. I used to work with a Norwegian who spent winter laughing at the British plunging into chaos over a couple of mm of snow and he was right

But I like it - it is a proper winter and not like those awful mild and wet ones we have been having recently.

Mind you that probably means we haven't had enough rain and we will have hosepipe bans come the summer.

How old is your Granny, herbietea - doesn't she remember the winter of 1963?

We had some cracking winters when I was a kid - love to see them return.

Well it is cold enough to have triggered automatic cold weather payments in London, and that is unusual.

'automatic cold weather payments'
what on earth are they?

even for the old style winters it would have been termed a cold snap. Average winter temperatures used to be about freezing in Jan/Feb - that is day and night average. In recent years the average has been a few degrees higher - because we haven't had a cold winter for a while.

This is typical cold weather conditions though - a blocking high (means it stays around for a week or more) that brings in cold air from eastern Europe, clear skies which allow it to cool down at night.