On Sat, 9 Jan 2010 21:24:49 -0000, Alex Stephens Jr wrote:

Pedant that I am, I can't resist pointing out that if it's
happened
before, even if it was over a hundred years ago, it's still not
unprecedented.

Well, I'm sure it was pretty cold durning some of those ice ages, it may
have happened more than a billion times before to be ultra pedantic.

Precisely the term needs a qualifier. Unprecidented in the last 10
years, 50 years, since records began the otherwise it is meaningless
journalistic hype.

--
Cheers Dave.
Nr Garrigill, Cumbria. 421m ASL.