Category: Snow

It is more likely to snow at Easter than Christmas…

30-Mar-10 14:01

 

Is it really going to snow this Easter? Have we not had enough of the big chill this year? According to the Met Office, if Easter is early, there's a chance that some parts of the country will get snow; in fact, they say that it is more likely to snow at Easter than it is at Christmas believe it or not. The later Easter is, the better the weather is likely to be. However, based on my memories the four-day period of Easter is rarely warm and sunny so it's probably unrealistic to expect tropical conditions!

The warmest Easter on record was Easter Sunday (22 April 1984) when temperatures apparently climbed to above 20°C with some regions breaking all-time records. The sunniest Easter was 4-6 April 1969 when the UK saw temperatures climbing above average (over 18°C in the south and above 15°C in the north).

But it looks like this Easter weekend is deemed to a rather cold and dull one, much like the Easter weekend of March 1964 - where temperatures barely reach 6-7°C in southern and central parts of the UK (brrrrrrr!) Parts of London had the coldest Easter for 81 years.

But if the recent weather reports are to be believed, parts of the UK are in for a white Easter, the Met Office say that the snowiest Easter on record was April 1983 where Scotland, the Midlands and Kent got up to 10cm of snow. I'm not sure whether to go and buy a sledge yet but there is definitely a chill in the air this morning...

Natalie

Snow news is good news

07-Jan-10 11:45

You could have spent weeks planning for a major campaign launch, but as soon as the first snow flakes start to fall there is really only one story in town.
Perhaps it's something to do with the British obsession with the weather, but the media can't get enough of the white stuff, pretty much at the expense of anything else.
Bristol saw its share of snow and disruption on Wednesday and in the response the Evening Post is running several pages of pictures and reports on how people have been coping with conditions.And buried among all the traffic and weather reports there will be a healthy dose of PR making the best of an opportunity that has literally fallen in their laps.

Newsdesks across the country will have spent all day looking for stories of heroism, human interest and examples of the old blitz spirit. And the PR industry will have reacted on cue providing stories of courage in the face of adversity or simply using the snow as the hook for publicity. In The Sun today, for example, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has managed to get in on the act by claiming the snow could cost the economy £1 billion and put many small businesses at risk.

On a more light-hearted note a UK-based extra-marital dating site, Illicitencounters.com, is claiming that it saw an unexpected increase in visitors with most new members registering from areas worst hit by extreme weather, including Hampshire, Berkshire, and the West Country.

As well as the snow, anything animal-related is always sure to get coverage as well so the PR team at London Zoo must be delighted with today's coverage of the annual head count of all their creatures great and small, ‘despite the freezing conditions', says the Guardian.

Of course it can also be a potential PR nightmare for those caught in the eye of the snow storm, such as transport companies and grit suppliers. Through no fault of their own they find themselves to blame for the weather and the fact that people are snowed in and unable to get to work. Every story has a villain and unfortunately it's often those who work tirelessly most of the time to keep the place going that are the easy target.

It must be a case of crisis management for a few of the beleaguered press officers trying to broadcast clear messages during a day of ever-changing circumstances such as we had on Wednesday in Bristol. In the end the head of comms for First Bus in Bristol went on to a message board of the Evening Post website to counter the criticism head-on and was clearly exasperated at some of the comments from people who had clearly not got the message.

 

Simon