In article .com,
BlueLightning writes:
Amazing pattern in recent years.

Always the short cold snap sometime during xmas week, followed by
return of mild, wet, muck in time for New Year's Day

A long time ago, sometime in the 1970's, there was a big New Year's Eve
snowstorm over the south-west

1978-9. Though it was actually overnight on the 30th-31st, IIRC. The
south-west had by far the worst of it, but in my part of Surrey we
managed about 2 inches, with considerable drifting.
--
John Hall

"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)