.... as Ian pointed out, the winters leading up to the 1739/40 bitter
event (and the notably cold year of 1740) were definitely on the 'mild'
side. Three of them 1733/34, 1736/37 and 1738/39 were notably mild with
average CET (Dec/Jan/Feb) values of 6.1, 5.6 and 5.6 respectively ...
around or a bit more than 2C above the all-series average. A quick look
at the whole series (only where given to nearest tenth, since 1699)
shows that using 5.6 as a threshold, there were only 25 such events.

If there had been a newsgroup at the end of the winter of 1738/39, no
doubt there would have been a clutch of posts along the lines of ..... "
we won't see cold winters in our lifetime " ;-)

Martin.


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