In reality the only two recent major snowfalls were 2009 + 2010 both with 25cm+ in one fall, recent years haven't been above 10cm and mostly in March, with plenty of years recording zero falls or only a smattering lying.

Depends where in Croydon he lives. We have several areas that fall under a Croydon postcode that actually have much higher elevation - Kenley and Warlingham to name but two, and they will often see snowfall that other areas do not. 

Me? I'm in one of the lowest points elevation wise in Croydon, very close to the Surrey/Kent/South London border (if you take postcodes as the reference point), and from an IMBY point of view, meaningful snow happens less often than a general election! If I do get lucky with a 5cm fall, then pretty much everywhere else more than a couple of miles away has had 10cm+.

I suppose it comes down to the definition of "my location". Are we purely considering IMBY, or based on our nearest town, or perhaps a 5 mile radius of any postcode? I went with IMBY, because I can't see anyone else's back yard!😂

This area certainly sees more than some other parts of the region, and indeed the rest of the UK. If marginal events are forecasted, then I'd probably say about 60% of the time we fall onto the snow side of marginal. Even during the most snowless winters that I can remember (2013–14 and 2019–20), we did managed to see falling snow for a time in both of them whilst others missed out completely.

Obviously, higher ground and more northerly areas do see a lot more of it than here, though.

My friend is in Sanderstead which is CR2 I think. I call it the Surrey Alps

Yeah, just down the road from Warlingham, and is definitely one of the higher elevation areas. My in-laws live near there, and they get a lot more snow than I do.

Once he took me to Caterham so I can test my winter tyres up some very steep hills.

They were worth every penny and when I came back home with the photes no one would believe me that was 10 miles from here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haddington_Hill 

I cannot imagine navigating the M25 in wintry conditions from Junction 10. North Downs much closer.

I'd rather drive to the Alps anytime.

Most winters there's rather too much of it and quite often there's far too much of it.

The novelty soon wears off when it goes on for days or weeks and organising deliveries or just getting out for food shop takes careful planning.

With a northerly flow and Low pressure in north sea showers often form trains and dump inches per hour.

It's essentially the same process as Lake Effect snow in North America.

https://live.staticflickr.com/7808/46660398711_e16ebff5bb_b.jpg 

That would do me from December to March.

Suffice to say, when I came to the UK in 1978 we settled in Putney Heath, and my ex-Yugoslav friends — all teenagers — would ski down to the pond near the A3 and over the little hills towards the windmill. I still refer to that as the man-made Roehampton/Putney Alps.

Unfortunately, no one believes that story today, apart from two Croatian friends who were there with me.

PS. We were not the only enthusiasts!

Well done on you saving that and being able to retrieve it at such notice! No i phones back in 1978/82

Hope the technique has improved since then?  😂😂😂

In my defence the boots and skies were my dad's. Also it was damned difficult skiing on that terrain with roots popping up through the snow. That said, I remember reaching the bottom of the slope and being annoyed with myself for not doing better. 😂

Let me guess: about three sizes too big and roughly from the Stone Age. Add tree roots popping up (akin to Alpine ski moguls)  through the snow and it was less “Alpine technique” and more “survival skiing.”

That said, reaching the bottom of the slope … clearly Olympic standards, even back then 😂

South Edinburgh at about 500 feet gets the marginal snow that the centre and certainly down on the coast don't (poor old john) - plus it does seem to stick when it lays

2010 I had over 18 inches level snow at my back door (not a drift) - BFTE 2018 managed about 8 inches - but plenty of other 4-6 inch dumps - April 2018 for example, and the 6 weeks at the start of 2021 the ground was mostly snow/ice covered through 3 different events

Rare we get a nov-winter-spring with no snow - last year we got 2 events, one in november, one in january that hung around for 4/5 days each. Just about the right length for not out-staying a welcome.

This year nothing so far, but the coming week looks promising

I’d second that score,  Dew! The only positive is proximity to South Downs….West Dean up to the  Trundle and to Cocking  which on rare occasions we get sleet or wet snow that doesn’t settle here, there , it’s been a bit of a winter wonderland up there…I

So we probably do deserve a 1 rather than a zero that Portsmouth would probably get! 

I am a typical Hibs fan who was born and bred in Leith. I don't live in Leith any more and I haven't done so since the early 2000s, but I still live within the north of Edinburgh and this means that the fact that I now live in a slightly different part of Edinburgh from where I was brought up hasn't in any way changed the fact that I have usually always seen very little in the way of snow where I have lived, especially over recent years.

Jerry has mentioned the difference between the city centre here in Edinburgh and the southern outskirts of the city where both he and Noodle Doodle are located, but that tail-off still sometimes continues even between the city centre and those coastal parts of the city such as Leith, Granton and Portobello and there has actually been the odd occasion when there has been a little bit of snow cover in the city centre and nothing at all in this part of the world.

It is not uncommon in fact, for it to just be raining here in the north of Edinburgh yet at the same time, for me to be seeing vehicles which are piled high with snow as a result of them having travelled to here from the south of Edinburgh or beyond (that will often be my only way of actually seeing some snow here).

Even here in NW Edinburgh though, it is still possible for us to get a lot of snow if the synoptics are perfect for that, and the big snow events of 2010 along with March 2013 and the 2018 Beast from the East event are perfect examples of that but overall, I have to give that only a 2/10 rating as that is only a very rare occurrence.

Back in my younger days, we were guaranteed to get at least a little bit of snow in any given winter even here in the north of Edinburgh, albeit still not as much as in the south of Edinburgh but that is no longer the case these days and in recent years, even the south of Edinburgh has started to see the odd snowless winter now and again. With ongoing climate change as well, that is probably going to become even more of a common occurrence over time as well.

As for the latest of the periods which Noodle Doodle mentioned, we had some snow from Storm Bert in November 2024 but by the following day, you wouldn't have thought that this had even happened as all of the snow had quickly disappeared by then with the temperatures jumping all the way up into double figures. The winter which followed that was then completely snowless here in NW Edinburgh with only the odd bit of sleet and wet snow at times which didn't even stick, so we didn't even get any of those events from last winter which Noodle Doodle had mentioned.

Probably about average for England, not as good as the north but better than Southampton /south coast/southwest, Devon Cornwall etc

Easterlies don't work unless they're an '87 or '91 style set-up. That pointless lump otherwise known as East Anglia steals any snow driven in on a wet fart easterly.

Then we have northerlies that are bone dry and almost always completely cloudless!

Next we come to Northwesterly driven snow showers that die a death 20 miles up the road, yet despite this I still sit up to some ungodly hour watching them evaporate on TWO's radar! 

Finally we have the southern attacks. These have to be the most frustrating of all as I watch them slide away from my southern facing bedroom window!  

We have however had some superb snowfalls, primarily from the 2012/13 'winter of the slider low'. Unfortunately that setup now seems to have followed the intense Easterly into extinction. 

I'll award my sad patch a very generous 2/10.

There was the perfect north easterly/easterly airflow at around Christmas. Still terrible.

At least the latter is giving me better chances of seeing the sun and some frosts but I'm convinced that our Winters are getting more and more watered down.