It's been snowy recently, hasn't it. Snowier than it has been for years. Although I'm sure it used to be this snowy once, didn't it, back when we were young? And then there was this snowy drought, until a couple of years ago. Or something.
So I've had a go at making a list of all the days on which it's snowed over the last 20 years.
Trust me, you can do this thing when you're the sort of person who keeps a daily diary (and who adds a special symbol in his diary every time it snows) (which is a bit sad really) (but, hey, quite useful right now, as it turns out). This is therefore a fairly unscientific list, unverified by meteorological professionals, and more dependent on whether I happened to be looking out of the window or not at the crucial moment. It also shifts, geographically, from East Anglia where I lived in the 1990s, to London where I've been living in the 21st century. That makes comparison between the two decades especially dodgy, because East Anglia's colder and nearer the North Sea and therefore gets more snow than inland 'heat island' London. In fact the whole thing's woefully subjective. But look, it's better than nothing, OK?
It snowed on every date listed in the tables below. Most snow events were just a few flakes or a light sprinkling. If it snowed enough to properly settle, the date's in bold. If it snowed a lot, and settled a lot, the date's underlined.
Snowy days in East Anglia(1991-2000)
Year
Winter/Spring
Autumn/Winter
1991
Feb 6 78
Dec 21
1992
Jan 9, Feb 18
1993
Feb 26 27 28, Mar 1
Nov 20 21, Dec 24 28
1994
Feb 22, Apr 4
1995
Jan 1, Mar 2 6 27 28
Dec 5 7 20 24 30
1996
Jan 25 26 27, Feb 6 18 19 20 21 22, Apr 12
Dec 27 30 31
1997
Jan 7 9, May 6
Dec 1 17
1998
Feb 28
Dec 15
1999
Jan 12, Feb 8
Dec 15
2000
Dec 28
There you go. 1995 and 1996 were especially snowy (by East Anglian standards, that is - I bet Scotland had more). And it definitely snowed more before 1997 than it did after. On to the 2000s...
Snowy days in London(2001-2010)
Year
Winter/Spring
Autumn/Winter
2001
Jan 18, Mar 2
2002
2003
Jan 8 30
2004
Jan 28
2005
Feb 21 22, Mar 4
Dec 27
2006
Feb 23
2007
Mar 19
2008
Mar 22 23
Nov 23
2009
Jan 5, Feb 1 2, Apr 6
Dec 16 17 18 21
2010
Jan 5 6 8 9 12 13, Feb 8 10
Nov 30, Dec 1 2 3 6 16 17 18 20
What a weedy decade for snow, compared to the previous one. There's not been much snow in the London area at all, at least until that heavy fall in February 2009 which caught the capital by surprise. And then lastwinter was proper snowy, just like the good old days. 2010 in particular is turning out to be the snowiest year since 1996 (which is sore comfort if your trains still aren't running).
So yes, it has been snowy recently. Snowier than it has been for years. Although it used to be this snowy once, back when we were younger. Make the most of it, before global warming damns us all to perpetual 2002.
