ENGLISH WINTERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 35, 30 May 1947, Page 3

ENGLISH WINTERS

COLD YEARS AHEAD WARNING BY EXPERTS Britain’s weather experts are telling farmers that winters are likely to be hard 'for some time, writes a London correspondent. Britain lies between the Continental and Atlantic weather areas. When the Atlantic influence predominates the weather is comparatively mild. Between 1900 and 1939, Atlantic conditions prevailed to an exceptional degree. Since 1930 the Continental forces have been stronger. It is predicted that this is the beginning of a series of years in which frost from the land masses to the east will overcome the. warmer air developed over the sea. Meteorologists have evidence from as far back as the seventeenth century to show, they say, that Britain’s weather does come in cycles. In that century easterly winds predominated between November and March, and hard winters were the rule.

Continental weather lost some of its power in the eighteenth century and in the nineteenth the two forces came out about equal. The milder period followed, with bad winters only in 1916-17 and 1928-29. There had also been exceptions to the rule in the nineteenth century. The last Frost Fair was held on the frozen Thames in 1814, the Crimean War was timed for a bad patch, and Scotland in 1879 achieved a record low figure of 55 degrees of frost. There is some comfort. The experts quote statistics to show that cold winters generally mean warmer summers.