White Christmas not on the cards

AS the sun sets on the shortest day of the year tomorrow the prospects for a white Christmas are, statistically, unpromising.

Ipswich-based weatherman Ken Blowers said the sun will be at its lowest spot in the sky at noon tomorrow on the Winter Solstice, which officially marks the beginning of winter.

But for those dreaming of a white Christmas, Mr Blowers reeled off some discouraging facts.

“Last Christmas Day was the 35th consecutive December 25th without snow falling,” he said.

“That means the last time in East Anglia was 1970 when two inches of snow fell.”

Mr Blowers pointed out that the last white Christmas was actually in 1981 when there was snow and ice everywhere but it was not freshly fallen.

“It was snow that had fallen over the previous two weeks and it was dirty, grubby snow,” he said, leaving it open to interpretation whether mucky snow truly constitutes a “white” Christmas.

In 1938 there were six inches of snow and in 1927 snow began to fall heavily at the end of Christmas Day.

“In 1906, so much snow fell that Ipswich tramway service - which ran on Christmas Day - ceased to operate,” Mr Blowers said.

He concluded: “So white Christmases are extremely rare.”

As for this year, he was not optimistic: “There's no sign whatever of any very cold weather although it has been cold this week with frost and fog.

“But there is no sign of anything where it (incoming snowy weather) usually develops in Scandinavia. You need very high pressure over Scandanavia.”

At William Hill betting on a white Christmas in various places around the country is brisk. The rule is: “That one flake of snow will fall on Met Office monitoring stations over the 24-hour period of the 25th of December.”

Odds yesterday morning for snow in London on Christmas Day were 9/2 and, for a long shot, William Hill has a 100/1 that the Thames will freeze over between Westminster Bridge and Tower Bridge and 100/1 that Big Ben fails to chime due to being frozen solid.