Weather News by Victoria Graham

   27/10/2003

I love the cold...and now that the clocks have gone back and the days are darker it really feels like the winter is upon us.

Already people are speculating whether or not we are going to have a 'White Christmas', we may indeed, as if myths and legends are to be believed, after a very hot summer, the winter should be a hard one...a little too early to tell just yet.

I noticed that the papers this Sunday were busy advertising their 'Christmas in Lapland' breaks with promises of seeing Santa and snow, it's debateable which of those promises can be kept with unusually high temperatures being reported in the north of Europe.

In Scjaldthingsstadir, Iceland, the midday temperature on Sunday afternoon was 16.6C, some 11 degrees above the average October maximum. Looking further northwards still where you would expect the temperatures to be even lower the thermometer read 20.5C at Dalatangi, some 14 degrees higher than their October maximum of 7C.

So where can we find some typical autumnal/winter weather at the moment. With thoughts of the skiing season nearly upon us mountainous Europe should be a good bet, but after an early showing of snow here, the snow clouds have now blown away. Cold nights have set in though as skies stay clear, in Switzerland for instance the temperature at Davos fell to -10.7C early Sunday morning - eleven degrees below their October minimum of around zero.

In Britain we have already had some of our first flurries this season. At Princetown, Dartmoor snow was reported on October 22nd, sleet and snow during October is very rare here. Not so unusual over the Scottish Highlands where we have already had some of the white stuff over the tops this season, and a little more to come later this week.

As for a white Christmas, well it really is too early to tell, we will keep you updated nearer the time...

Weather News from the last five days:
26/10/2003
25/10/2003
24/10/2003
23/10/2003
22/10/2003

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