In message ,
Julian Mayes writes
in it he says that the winter with the lowest
number of days of sleet or snow observed to fall was 1863 with 3.

Very interesting, bhe obvious question is "Where?"
--
John Hall


Yes, I wish Manley had specified that. My guess would be St James Park
/ Westminster / Kew. But as my comparison is with Hampstead, the
highest and thus snowiest part of London proper, the decrease is more
stark.

Julian


So he did specify that it was in London, did he? Presumably the lowest
number in somewhere like Penzance would have been zero.
--
John Hall
"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come
sit next to me."
Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)

So he did specify that it was in London, did he? Presumably the lowest
number in somewhere like Penzance would have been zero.
--
John Hall


Sorry, yes it was in the context of London - I did not make that clear, did I.

While on subject of London's climate, overheard in London today - member of the public says " Of course, the reason we don't get all that bad weather [in other parts of the country] is because of all the bricks." - she was thinking of the urban heat-island.

Quite amusing to think that bricks can influence what falls out of the sky - public perception of the urban heat-island seems rather inflated sometimes while there's no appreciation of topography, latitude and our location within the UK.

Julian

Some wet sleet snow up here in Hampstead on the morning of the 27th so not a snowfall free winter. There might have been some settling right at the top up at Whitestone Pond but I didn’t have a chance to check and if so it would probably have been after the 0900 cut-off. Rain later.

I’m don’t recall recording an air frost in January (unlike St James park) but my thermometer is poorly placed so it is possible we nudged fractionally below zero. Still, none of my tender plants from the summer have shown the slightest frost damage.