Arctic snap set to bring worst freeze for 40 years
Tuesday 29th December 2009, 2:30PM GMT.
Snow at the Mount, near Oswestry, taken this afternoon, December 29, 2009
Shropshire and Mid Wales was today braced for an Arctic-style battering — with the region set to be gripped by the worst cold snap for 40 years.
Experts are predicting heavy snowfall and strong easterly winds combining to create blizzard conditions — rivalling the big freezes of 1963 and 1979.
Snow was falling near Oswestry this afternoon.
- Forecast — click here
- True grit — Keeping our roads open
- Send us your snow pictures — don’t forget to include your name and address and where the pictures were taken — and we’ll use the best online and in the paper. Click here to send your pictures.
The sleet and snow is set to spread from the south with weathermen forecasting falls of up to 15cm across Shropshire, Herefordshire and parts of Wales. Those falls could continue well into tomorrow.
Biting winds from the east and temperatures plunging to about -3C ( 26F) are set to cause travel chaos as people return to work after the Christmas break.
Shropshire weatherman John Warner said his charts were mirroring the extreme conditions which affected the county during the previous cold spells.
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If this is anything like the 4″ of snow due tomorrow story, I would give this story any lip service..
Shambles….
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Worst cold snap for 40 years!!!! With snow on high ground but very little in the towns? And down to only a staggering -3c. That is a serious cold snap………. Get a grip John warner…..
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Warner needs to get a grip. It’s a little chilly but that’s about it.
As usual, if Warner predicts bad weather, I go out in my leotard.
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1pm and not a flake of snow in shrewsbury!
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This is going to be very very bad, check out the forecast link, we’re not going above freezing for another week at least!
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This article is a joke.
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This cold spell is a fallacy ,it is not happening .We are in the midst of global warming everyone knows that .Surely the picture from America is faked as well .Who is conning who ?.
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Its milder outside than in the last week and a half, and we are expecting 4 inches of snow – ha ha ha
Our met office couldn’t forecast a winner in a one horse race.
Go to the USA, here they can accurately forecast on which street in a city it will rain.
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Thing is, D.L.Barnett, what we these days laughingly call a cold spell (or whatever) is nothing more than normal winter weather. People have become soft, with their central heating, double glazing and in-car heating, etc, and because of the generally warmer weather of recent years. -3C is not cold. It really isn’t. A bit of snow on the hills is not the end of the world. People – especially in the media it seems – need to get a grip.
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Still waiting for this 15cm of snow. Going to be a bit difficult with temperatures being above zero Celsius today, tonight, tomorrow… elementary science this guys!
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wasn’t 1963 the UK’s Record ever recorded low temperature of -18 in Edgmond?
Well is about -2 not in St Georges, and raining! some way off the worst cold snap for 40 years!
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Complete journalistic rubbish as usual from the Shropshire Star’s Preset Headlines drawer. In the summer it’s “Phew what a scorcher… Water shortage… Standpipes in the street..” In winter a few millimetres of snow triggers the “Arctic Snap” headline. The only certainty is that it rains. Today it rained. Virtually all of November it rained. Most of the so-called Barbeque Summer it rained. The weather in this country is boring, predictable and only threatening in the very short term – whatever the press would have us believe.
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note to council – GRIT ROADS NOW!!!
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6pm and still not a hint of snow in the air, kids are waiting patiently to get sledges out and still we wait. Whats gone wrong……Surely the met office couldnt have got it so wrong
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I was being facetious, !947 We built a huge snowman lasted for weeks cannot remember the schools closing ,1963 I was putting up wires for Post office telephones all around Sambrook and Newport area’s ,Had a good apprentice some days if I was lucky .Loads of chaps in similar occupations in those days .If the van with snow chains could not get you walked with ladder on shoulder safety belt and tools in opposite hand .Perhaps you are right we have gone soft .
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MAY DAY…MAY DAY..
Shrewsbury Town Centre – Tuesday 7pm.
Totally SNAFU here
{Seasonally Normal: Am Fairly Unimpressed}.
Rain…lots of rain.
Nowhere near freezing.
Have just looked at calendar.
Ooops..that would explain it!
Keep calm and carry on.
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what snow, there is no snow
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-3C !
Give me a shout when it’s really cold.
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Those critical of John Warner would do well to read what he really said and not what you thought he might have said. But didn’t.
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The photo from Iowa is no fake, however it is misleading – the big pile this guy is clearing is from the end of the drive and is as it is due to a snow plough having gone by which pushes all the snow from the road to the edge of the road – I live in Canada and we experience similar on a nearly daily basis from beginning December to end April. Other than that plummeting temps to -3′ and 15cm of snow seems rather dramatic to report in this way.
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it is a balmy + 10 down here in deepest devon and raining, but it is going to get a lot colder by new year. remember this is the forcasters mild winter following the barbecue summer.
harold your leotard will come in handy on friday and i do hope fifi is well wrapped up for the new year!!
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Snow … what snow? More money thrown at the weather people for their useless and inaccurate hi-tech computer and satellite toys. Chuck ‘em in the recycling bin, lads, and look out of the window to see if the cows are lying down or not. Bring back the magnetic symbols …
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Matt – I’ve read the report 3 times and it clearly warns of arctic conditons in Shropshire. This is the SHROPSHIRE Star website. People shouldn’t have to be subjected to such sensationalist rubbish!
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Well thanks to our inaccurate weather forecasts another big waste of salt on the roads,the only forecast they ever get right is YESTERDAYS WEATHER. !!!
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Time for serious Quango thinning. And I think a good place to start would be the Met Office. Especially it’s over vocal and increasingly hysteric Information Department. It’s not a case of how loud you shout that makes you invaluable, it’s what you’re saying. So why does the Media consistently trot after this dis-information like a hungry lost sheep all the time? I don’t believe weather headlines sell papers anymore.
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we need to see more responsible reporting here – many older folk – my mother included – get extremely anxious to read sensationlist headlines like this, which inevitably rarely materialise. Additionally, people plan their journeys across country based on these reports only to find that they are completely wrong.
Typical tabloid journalism from a paper which used to be quality.
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When my three were in pushchairs we had thick snow 2 to 3 years running and the snow being pushed off the road made trying to get anywhere on foot diabolical but… so long as car drivers were not inconvenienced.
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I was in Quebec city a few years ago when the temperature was -25°C with wind chill taking it down to -40°C and the snow was 4ft deep. Thats a cold spell! But for them it was normal winter weather and strangely enough the whole place didn’t come to a standstill.
PS wasn’t the winter of 81-82 very cold when Mr Warner recorded around -30°C (one of the UKs lowest ever temperatures)? The anti-freeze in my car radiatir froze that winter.
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I’m so glad I’ve found these comments – I thought it was just me who gets exasperated over John Warner’s totally inaccurate weather predictions and the E&S scaremongering headlines.This has been
the case for years. My advice – whatever the prediction it will do the opposite.
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still waiting for the 4in of snow
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I spent Christmas day skating on the lake below my house. The ice is about a foot thick – after a few weeks of cold weather – though not really cold for us Canadians, it is a balmy -13c today(that’s the high of course).
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Ex Much Wenlock now living in Canada… We have no snow yet in Toronto but the temperatures have dropped recently to -15c though over here that’s just considered a bit chilly. Liked the scary “Worst worst freeze for 40 years” headline. I think it was colder than -3 in Shropshire over the Xmas period last year when I was visiting.
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