Graham wrote:

Looking at my average snow records I was quite amazed how January seems
to be getting much less in recent years.


It is extraordinary how little snow there has been here in January in
recent years. There were only 2 Januaries, at Dyce, with no lying snow
between 1945 and 1987, inclusive, but an incredible 8 out of 19 since
1988 have had no cover.

The average has declined from a peak of 11.1 days with snow lying
between 1958 and 1967 to only 1.6 days for 1997-2006. That compares
with 1.4 days for April between 1968 and 1977. The last January with as
much as 11 days of snow cover was in 1984.

The average was, however, only 4.7 days for 1946-55 and will have been
lower still during the 1920s and 30s but I doubt anywhere as low as
recently. Fortunately this is not the case with the other months and
overall I do not think there has been any decline in snowiness across
the past century. Recent years have been similar to the early 20th
Century but the period 1940-70 was considerably snowier.

Richard Slessor,
Aberdeen.