Has winter passed us by? by Steph Ball
Consider this winter and your greatest memory may be of earlier this month when heavy snowfalls closed schools, airports and caused travel chaos across many parts of the UK.
However, the UK Met Office declared yesterday that winter 2006-2007 was actually the UK’s second mildest on record. In fact, for the South of England it is the mildest on record.
The last 12 months in the UK ( March 2006 to February 2007 ) is also reported to be the warmest period in the last 348years. For Southern England the series used to record mean temperature, the Central England temperature ( CET ), has recorded a mean temperature of 6.53C (43.75F) beating the previous high of 6.49C (43.68F) set in 1989-1990.
Although the winter itself has broken few records, it has been notably warmer than average over the last few months. This is due to winds remaining predominantly from the south and southwest.
Few people will be surprised by this recent declaration, considering the many reports of early flowering daffodils and snowdrops, in some cases weeks ahead of schedule. At the end of January the Royal Horticultural Society confirmed most spring flowers were in bloom between Yorkshire, Devon and Surrey – including rhododendrons, not normally seen until March.
This has also been mirrored across other parts of Europe and the rest of
the world, with early flowering plants and some animals shirking their usual winter hibernation.
At the weekend MeteoSwiss declared this winter to be Switzerlands warmest since records began 140 years ago, at least for the densely populated lowlands. This was followed on Tuesday by the German Weather Service declaring this winter also to be the warmest on record across Central Europe.
As we bow out of February and the final statistics are fully analysed, it may not be too long before other countries make similar statements regarding the winter of 2006/2007.
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