In watching the movie Millions, I noticed that, though it supposedly took place at Christmas, there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen. The trees had leaves on them, the grass was green and lush, and the characters, when they wore “winter” clothing at all, wore light jackets.
Is this typical of English Christmases, or poetic license on the part of the filmmakers?
It’s typical, although it naturally gets colder the further north you go.
So, for instance, in the south of England, you might get just 1 or 2 days of snow a year, and even then it’ll probably be in January or February. Every year the bookmakers take bets on whether it will be a white Christmas - it hardly ever is.
So actually, it’s all those Dickens-esque images of London in the snow that are poetic licence.
We may not often get scorching summers, but then we only generally get mild winters.
How cold, and for that matter, how hot, does it get? What are the typical averages, and what are the extremes?
In the south of England where I am, it’s been about 38 C during summer. In winter the lowest temperature is probably about -3.
Actually, it might be possible they’re not, since there was still a Little Ice Age going on during that period.
If it wasn’t still going on during Dickens’ writings, snowy winters might still have been part of the collective conciousness at the time.
Just a WAG, though.
Maybe Dickens himself was being accurate though, for his time?
A couple of years ago, I visited England in late December and early January, going as far north as North Yorkshire. I didn’t see a single snow flake, and some flowers were blooming. The big reason why England is warm compared with places in North America at similar latitudes is the Gulf Stream.
In southern England, average daily maxima are low-to-mid 70s in summer and around 40F in winter. London is supposed to be a few degrees warmer because of the urban heat island effect. Knock 10F off for the summer maxima in Scotland, but the winters there are not much colder than down south.
Anything above 85F is considered a heatwave, anything below 20F is the Big Freeze.
There should not have been any leaves on the trees at that time of year. I guess that the movie was not filmed at Christmastime but earlier in the year. I see this happening in films all the time. I remember seeing an episode of Homicide - Life on the Street that were set at around the Christmas holidays and the trees were all in leaf in Baltimore. Later episodes did show trees with no leaves.
You mean lowest daytime temperature? I’ve certainly seen much lower than that here in Suffolk, and a brief google found a random result from Gatwick in 1987 recording highs of -7c two days running.
FWIW, the lowest temperature on record in the UK was -27c (-17f) in the Scottish Highlands.
Guh. Someone remind me to move to England, please.
-Cem
Another misconception about English winters is that it is always foggy in towns. Fifty years ago this may have been the case. Now, with the advent of various Clean-Air Acts, and the fact that few people now have coal fires a “Foggy Day in London Town” is a very rare event.
Very true. People here in Atlanta are surprised when I tell them that the coldest part of the Atlanta winter is colder than in England. And the warmest part of the Atlanta winter is warmer than in England. The weather in England just doesn’t hit the same extremes (usually - I was there in mid-July in the heatwave).
People are also surprised to hear that Atlanta has twice the annual rainfall of London. It is just that the Atlanta rain often falls in heavens-opening storms that throw inches down in a few hours, whereas London will treat you to days of drizzle before amassing the same amount.
To say that “anything above 85F is a heatwave” is not really true, these days. In the past 15 years or so the British climate does seem to have shifted to a warmer and drier pattern, especially in the south.
Most summers now reach the 90s quite a few times. Summer 2005 reached 30C (86F) in every month from May to September inclusive. Just three days ago, on Monday, it reached 87F in London. (It has since got about 15F cooler and pelted with rain of course).
As for winter, we don’t really get them any more. The southern UK hasn’t had what I’d call a harsh winter since 1987, or 1991 at a push. Typically they’ve been mild and wet at times with maximum temperatures rarely below 50F even in the depths of winter, and little in the way of frost.
The last couple of winters have been a little colder, but lying snow is virtually unheard of in southern England now, except for a few spots on high ground in the far southeast that catch showers off the continent.
This is a misconception. The ocean currents that hit the Pacific Northwest run straight across from Asia. Thus, they don’t have the equivalent of a Gulf Stream, yet their climate is also mild.
From “The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate”, American Scientist, July-August 2006:
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Londoners held “Frost Fairs” on the Thames when it froze over in winter. That hasn’t happened in living memory (IIRC, the last Frost Fair was in about 1815). That’s a bit early for Dickens, but it was still probably colder then than now.
Still enough to cause days of chaos though. “Oh look! A snowflake! Cancel all the trains and activate the Road Chaos Generator™”
I guess there may have been a few evergreens, yanno Conifers, Holly, Monkey Puzzle and the like but yes generally speaking the tress are bare of leaves in winter.
FWIW I’ve taken, in winter, some beautiful photos of spider webs hanging from the monkey puzzle tree in my back garden, pics taken in B&W of course for the effect.
As has been said it’s a tad colder in the North of the UK but really the last few winters have been very mild.
It wasn’t the weather that changed after the last Frost Fair in 1813-14 - it was the demolition of Old London Bridge in 1831 and the embanking of the river that made the difference. It has been suggested that, without those changes, the Thames at London would have frozen again in 1838 and 1853. Which would have meant that the freezing of the river would actually have become slightly more frequent in that period than at any point during the previous three centuries.
Some data here about last winter’s temperatures here in the UK.
The Met Office site has data from other seasons too, so you can compare over different years.