The current anticyclonic frosty spell has reminded me of a similar spell of
pre- Christmas weather in 1944 when I was a wartime ' evacuee' , living
near Stoke-on- Trent. A couple of days of frost and fog culminated in waking
up on Christmas morning to clear skies and a spectacular hoar frost with
trees and bushes covered in rime.( This was the time of the ' Battle of the
Bulge' in the Ardennes). These conditions lasted, with dawn to dusk
sunshine, until the 27th. After that, cloud increased from the west and
temperatures rose, but a very cold January followed.

The main difference between the 1944 and 2007 charts, was that the initial
High had moved west from Russia and , although at Christmas it was centred
over the Balkans , a ridge extended west into the Atlantic:-
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsslpeur.html

A very cold northerly spell began in early January.

Peter Clarke
Ewell, Epsom