Lawrence13 wrote:

On Friday, 8 February 2013 05:32:52 UTC, Sleepalot wrote:
Lawrence13 wrote:



I'd be interested to see those statistics as stuff like that is ahrd to find.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/7360644@N07/5770383378/in/photostream

Thanks Sleepatlot, I have on many occassion spent hours trawling for stuff like that
and never seem to find simple graphs, but apparently you put that one together?

Yes, I somehow found the right place at the Off. of Nat. Sats., grabbed the data
and made the graph. (I can't find the data now.)

Funny thing is I can't believe that fatalities were lower in 1952 than the many
of the years around it with 1951 more than 3 times higher. I say that as 1952
was the year of a terrible smog over London and possibly other areas of the
country with over 4000 deaths attributable to the awful conditions, 1962 when
there was another exceptional period of smog just before Christmas and the
New Year and taht is possibly reflected in those figures in 63?

(Just speculating.) It's not just the severity of the winter, but the number of
vulnerable people around. If you have a series of mild winters, you accumulate
vulnerable people, and one harsh winter brings high mortality. The next winter
might be just as harsh but cause fewer deaths because there are fewer vulnerable
people.

What were the causes of those winter deaths -surely not just hypothermia?

Are flu outbreaks included?

As I understand it....

....it's from all causes. They just count the number of deaths each month, and
subtract typical spring/summer/autumn numbers from winter numbers to get
winter excess deaths.

Off. of Nat. Sats http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html

Here's a breakdown of who died, and why, during the winter of 2010/2011
(provisional)
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health2/excess-winter-mortality-in-england-and-wales/2011-12--provisional--and-2010-11--final-/ewm-reference-tables.xls

Here's the 1951 - 2010 excess winter mortality figures ...
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health2/excess-winter-mortality-in-england-and-wales/2010-11--provisional--and-2009-10--final-/stb-ewm-2010-11.html