When reading through the various threads recently there is a lot of talk about winters not being what they used to be etc.

No doubt some of the weather in the past was certainly better from a wintery perspective than it has been over the past 20 years or so on the whole,, but do we look back on those days 30/40/50 years ago and in our heads see something that is different to the reality at the time, especially the length of the cold spells with the exeption of obvious extere winters.

The question is purely from a actual weather on the ground perspective rather than synoptically.

No, they were more severe.

 

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But his childhood prior to that was characterised by 8 consecutive white Christmases.

 

Dickens was born on the south coast but here is the weather for Christmases in London

1812: cold, frost, snow from a previous fall may have lingered

1813: mild and drizzly

1814: some snow

1815: cold but dry, a frost

1816: fine but average temperatures

1817: snow grains

1818: foggy with rime

1819: hoar frosts, fair

1820: cold cloudy, bleak but no mention of snow

1821: fine

1822: cloudy and fine but cold

Definitely some cold Christmas in that early period but they appear to be the anticyclonic type. Nowhere does it say an appreciable snowfall fell on the big day. 

Going off this evidence and what happened before and after the big day, I suspect that Dickens experienced a run of snowy White Christmases is a myth during his youth. 

 

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He spent some time at Malton in North Yorkshire which is prone to prolonged spells of freezing fog - especially in those days when every other chimney was belching yellow smoke.

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Dickens was born on the south coast but here is the weather for Christmases in London

1812: cold, frost, snow from a previous fall may have lingered

1813: mild and drizzly

1814: some snow

1815: cold but dry, a frost

1816: fine but average temperatures

1817: snow grains

1818: foggy with rime

1819: hoar frosts, fair

1820: cold cloudy, bleak but no mention of snow

1821: fine

1822: cloudy and fine but cold

Definitely some cold Christmas in that early period but they appear to be the anticyclonic type. Nowhere does it say an appreciable snowfall fell on the big day. 

Going off this evidence and what happened before and after the big day, I suspect that Dickens experienced a run of snowy White Christmases is a myth during his youth. 

 

 

I'll bow to your stats, but I got the info from these sources:

 

"There happened to be snow every Christmas of the first eight years of Charles Dickens' life, which probably explains why white Christmases are a consistent feature of his stories. "

http://qi.com/infocloud/snow

 

"As we know, in the UK it rarely snows at Christmas, but it so happened that when Dickens was a boy there were several snowy Christmases – and, as a result, he came to see snow as an essential part of an ideal yule. "

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/on-writing/times-and-life/2016/nov/what-was-christmas-like-for-charles-dickens/

 

"That’s because his own childhood in the 1810s included several snowy winters in a short period."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-charles-dickens-shaped-christmas-1506955

 

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I've got another stat

 

1960 Global Population - just short of 3 Billion

1999 Global Population - over 6 billion

 

Using the UK as an example

1960 Vehicle Licences - 5 million

1999 Vehicle Licences = 30 million

 

That's a lot of heat and lot of energy right there

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Bet we do not miss those frosted aluminium framed window panes. 

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I'll bow to your stats, but I got the info from these sources:

 

"There happened to be snow every Christmas of the first eight years of Charles Dickens' life, which probably explains why white Christmases are a consistent feature of his stories. "

http://qi.com/infocloud/snow

 

"As we know, in the UK it rarely snows at Christmas, but it so happened that when Dickens was a boy there were several snowy Christmases – and, as a result, he came to see snow as an essential part of an ideal yule. "

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/on-writing/times-and-life/2016/nov/what-was-christmas-like-for-charles-dickens/

 

"That’s because his own childhood in the 1810s included several snowy winters in a short period."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-charles-dickens-shaped-christmas-1506955

 

Lol, the tabloid is probably the fairest and most accurate assessment out of the three, say snowy winters not Christmases. The QI one is duff, 8 consecutive white Christmases during the first 8 years of his life?! The 2nd Christmas of Dickens' life was mild! It had a CET mean of 8.0! 

Christmas Days 1823 to 1827 had a CET average of 8.3, that's when he was 11 to 15. 

 

 

 

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Dickens was born on the south coast but here is the weather for Christmases in London

1812: cold, frost, snow from a previous fall may have lingered

1813: mild and drizzly

1814: some snow

1815: cold but dry, a frost

1816: fine but average temperatures

1817: snow grains

1818: foggy with rime

1819: hoar frosts, fair

1820: cold cloudy, bleak but no mention of snow

1821: fine

1822: cloudy and fine but cold

Definitely some cold Christmas in that early period but they appear to be the anticyclonic type. Nowhere does it say an appreciable snowfall fell on the big day. 

Going off this evidence and what happened before and after the big day, I suspect that Dickens experienced a run of snowy White Christmases is a myth during his youth. 

 

 

 

with that in mind its clear if dickens was alive today he would be on these boards chasing the perfect winter snow storm.

 

Dickens1812

Rank: Moderator

joined 2nd Feb 1843

22,900 posts

 

 

 Not a bad run, but the sun is getting stronger and only a few more weeks and the daffs will be showing......More runs needed"

 

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I'll bow to your stats, but I got the info from these sources:

 "There happened to be snow every Christmas of the first eight years of Charles Dickens' life, which probably explains why white Christmases are a consistent feature of his stories. "

http://qi.com/infocloud/snow

"As we know, in the UK it rarely snows at Christmas, but it so happened that when Dickens was a boy there were several snowy Christmases – and, as a result, he came to see snow as an essential part of an ideal yule. "

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/on-writing/times-and-life/2016/nov/what-was-christmas-like-for-charles-dickens/

"That’s because his own childhood in the 1810s included several snowy winters in a short period."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-charles-dickens-shaped-christmas-1506955

Some doubt there as to whether Dickens saw snowy Christmases as a child or not. I suppose it depends where the people who wrote those articles got their information from and whether it was real weather history from the place Dickens lived.  I dare say every Christmas there will be somewhere in the UK that has snow. 

Regardless, he could have been wearing rose tints when he wrote.  Maybe he did have early happy memories of snowy days, like I do.  If I were writing a winter story, it would have to have snow in it, to give some sense of atmosphere.  No good winter story would be without it. So a Dickensian Christmas is more likely to resemble the winters he depicted in his stories, but not necessarily the ones he actually experienced. 

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Some doubt there as to whether Dickens saw snowy Christmases as a child or not. I suppose it depends where the people who wrote those articles got their information from and whether it was real weather history from the place Dickens lived.  I dare say every Christmas there will be somewhere in the UK that has snow. 

Regardless, he could have been wearing rose tints when he wrote.  Maybe he did have early happy memories of snowy days, like I do.  If I were writing a winter story, it would have to have snow in it, to give some sense of atmosphere.  No good winter story would be without it. So a Dickensian Christmas is more likely to resemble the winters he depicted in his stories, but not necessarily the ones he actually experienced. 

 

He was born during the Little Ice Age (the last Frost Fair was two years after he was born). My belief is that snowy winters and Christmasses were much more common during his early years (although perhaps not as common as those links I posted made out!) and this was coupled with a general societal perception at that time that Christmas was a generally snowy time (built up over 3 centuries of the LIA - and GB only officially changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, bringing Xmas Day forward by 12 days)

Anyway, I'm sure we can all agree that a white Xmas is a thing to cherish!

 

 

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