Central London looks beautiful in the snow. Imagine Big Ben topped with icing, the Houses of Parliament with white thatching, Green Park renamed White Park, and Buckingham Palace enveloped by thick cotton wool. Unfortunately all you can do is imagine, because it never snows in central London. There may have been snow in the south-east last night, and children in the suburbs may have gone back to school to make snowmen in the playground and throw snowballs at their teachers, but central London remained virtually untouched. Big Ben was still brown, Green Park was still green, and Whitehall wasn't white. There may have been a very light sprinkling of flakes on the ground but that had long gone by sunrise. Pity.
As a huge urban area covering over 600 square miles, London generates a lot of heat. This is the heat island effect, and it keeps the temperature in central London a couple of degrees above that of the surrounding suburbs. In a heatwave London often has the country's highest daily temperature. London can escape a frost even when the suburbs are frozen. And clouds that drop snow around the capital may still just be warm enough over central London for the flakes to melt and fall as rain. Last night London was indeed the warmest place in the country, even though temperatures only scraped freezing. Blame the microclimate.
So, we missed out on snow in London again. According to scientists, global warming means that snow is less and less likely round here in the future, so that future generations of locals may never see another snowflake except on their Christmas cards. Instead they can look forward to suntans, palm trees, olive groves, melanoma and malaria. Which is a pity, because I imagine central London looks beautiful in the snow.
