Lowest daytime maximum: 1.9 °C on 05/01

Lowest nighttime minimum: −5.4 °C on 06/01

Snow: Around 1.5 cm on fields above the town centre at approximately 160 m ASL, which persisted with little thawing for several days.

Overall score: 5/10

Summary: A diluted version of the December 2022 cold spell.

Was there a cold spell then? Was that when it snowed a week before Christmas? I cant remember

Our average temp for January is -1.0C  , 8 ice days, , lowest temp -10.1C . 

We still have 25cm of snow on the ground, as finally the thaw has set in.

As they say, be careful what you wish for, there are still a number of people here stuck in homes and unable to get too shops etc. we have had no mail deliveries since 28th December 25 ! ( though Amazon delivered !! ) and the piles of cleared snow will be causing issues for weeks. 

 Was picture perfect on many days , but have to admit, it starts to get tiresome after two weeks !! 😄

It was, as you can imagine, cold throughout but not excessively so.

The snow missing us at Christmas was a cruel blow, as was the prolonged NW'ly spell which seemed to deliver for everywhere *but* here! (I know in reality other areas will have seen as little as me, or even no snow at all). At least we avoided damaging winds when we moved back to the mild side of the jet for a while!

I still have this nagging feeling that Philip Eden was right: 2005 was the last great easterly. He will certainly never see another and I'm increasingly of the view that I never will either. 

At least parts of Scotland did well out of it, and for some (like Doc) it'll be a spell which will live long in the memory - on a par with what we had in the 80s here! (FWIW the "beast" in 2018, truncated thought it was, delivered enough snow for it to linger for 2 weeks afterwards in the shade behind the hedgerows in the nearby fields - the sign of a decent drop of snow.)

Last year delivered more snow (a complete dusting, albeit for 30 minutes around half midnight one day), as well as a colder absolute max. The absolute min was -4.3, compared with -3.8 last year. To think those were daytime highs for some of the 80s and 90s spells! 

(EDIT: Coldest day max this time: 2.0, last year's January spell: 1.0).

Second EDIT: If you take away the 1.5C or so of warming since the 80s, it'd have been an absolute snowfest down here, too. We had 45mm of rain over 3 days, and on one of those days it was at 2C or less. Take 1.5C from that...

4/10 Frost. -4.5C was the lowest I think. The winds were the factor that prevented harder frosts, though at times the frost was penetrating into the ground but not notably so.

Chilly yes but notable even for here? Not really.

Echoing the sentiments above, the gloss does wear off after a few days and there has been scant fresh veg, bread, milk or eggs in the supermarkets for a week now. 

A few light snow flurries gave a dusting on 2 days

3 nights at -5 C

Frost lasted all day on a few days

Disappointing forecasts and inaccurate warnings

Unremarkable

However, that was as good as it got. There were no ice days, no minus double figures temperatures here in Edinburgh and just the one night in which the temperature got down to -5°C or below.

Finally, even though most of the rest of the UK was plastered by snow at least once, there is no snow here whatsoever except for a little bit of overnight snow which we had on Thursday night going into Friday morning which had already completely disappeared from here in NW Edinburgh by the following evening.

On the following day, we even had what turned out to be something of a freezing rain event. It rained on Friday night despite a temperature of just below freezing but by the following, everything was sheet ice and very slippery as a result of that rain freezing when it has hit the very cold surface.

With all of that in mind though, I can't really give that cold spell any more than 2/10 overall as it was such a huge disappointment overall.

However places near to here I think did get more snow from the storm. 

0.1 out of 10 for Chichester…the frosty mornings were lovely …as for snow… a magnifying glass showed up a few snow “grains” one morning…and that was that! 

Shame the mild weather now killing the snow not the sun that I prefer to thaw the snow nicely.  

From what I know Scotland did really well in terms of cold and snow including lying snow which is probably still there.

For England it was a different picture, but many places didn't see any snow at all.

These are my ratings and views on it.

This cold spell sort of reminded me of the 2-3 weeks colder spell we had in December 2022.

For cold min night-time temperatures recorded I would say I would give it perhaps 6/10 - We (Okehampton) got below the -5c for the first time since December 2022. Other parts of the county were colder and this was the longest period of below average temperatures in a while from around 22nd December 2025 right up until 8th January 2026. Making it the longest cold spell since December 2022 - lasting 16-17 days.

Xmas Day Coldest Christmas day & NYE for many years with a max of +4.0c Xmas day making it more seasonal at least which is a welcome change. It was also the coldest NYE since NYE 2020.

For frosts - I would give it 5/10 - Only had 5 frosty mornings/nights but sometimes frost did last all day but the colder snap over Xmas was not very frosty at all.

For snow - I would give it 3/10 - It wasn't that exciting tbh. Most of the snow showers were to the west of the county with Cornwall bearing the brunt but that streamer Saturday night 3rd into 4th and 4th into 5th gave two fresh dustings of powdery snow. But Okehampton only got a sprinkling but it was nice to see a dusting of fluffy powdery snow fall - like fairy tale snowflakes. Also on evening of Monday 5th there were snow grains/snizzle shower when it was -2.0c which left another trace of dandruff on existing dandruff dustings.

For snow depth: 1/10 - It was poor TBH because there was hardly any snow falling and the snow that did fell were very brief flurries giving a trace of it and the snow (although was powdery and dry) was too light in intensity and quite localised too. The cold spell in January 2025 gave us 6 hrs of constant snow accumulating up to 2" in places but was wetter.

Snow cover duration: 3/10 - The little dusting of snow that we did have lasted from Saturday 3rd - Tuesday 6th. Making it last longer than 48hrs compared to the previous snowfalls.

For ice days: 0/10: - There were NO ice days Sunday was the 4th was the coldest but temperature was 0.5c so no ice day to report, which was disappointing. - Even more frustrating how cold it was in N. America and mainland Europe. It was like the UK was so near, yet so far!?

Snowy breakdown to mild - this was poor as well but interesting. 

Storm Goretti For storm Goretti it was a big let down as very little snow fell but exciting seeing how the warmer and colder airmasses came along I would give this 3/10. Because there was interest from a convective weather enthusiast as in the temperature in the afternoon on 8th rose to +11.5c then dropped to 6.5c by 19:00 and followed by a very sharp drop to +0.8c within a few hours along with heavy wet snow horizontally  for (15-20 minutes) at 21:30 - 22:00 (could have been more or less as I didn't see it from start but there was almost half an hour of wet snow - before turning back to rain before temperatures rose from 23:00 on 8th January to +2.5c and then stabilising at temperature of 2.9c which gave hail on 9th on and off throughout the day. But for the SW any snow was really brief and transitional and a non event making it a poor breakdown come the end. Even parts of Dartmoor saw very limited snow with Goretti.

SUMMARY: There were some positives from a cold weather perspective but otherwise it was a poor cold spell overall - The SW Moors didn't see much snow and from what I know many parts of Devon didn't see any and the issue was ice the main issue and winds from storm Goretti. If only the wind could have backed easterly then we could have been in for more fun and games from a cold and snowy weather enthusiast. But for a cold spell lasting over 2x weeks I expected more of the white stuff.

At least the cold spell in January 2025 there was more snow "2-3" of it. That being said the snow was wetter and the cold snap in January 2025 was not as cold.

Thank goodness I am not in Exeter or else it would be a big FAT 0/10.

In summary the average I would rate this cold spell is a 4/10 here for Okehampton. - (Poor and despite it's longevity I expected more snow from a channel low!)

I would be keen to know how roadrunner did and what others thought of this cold spell?

PS - I have a question...Do you think this cold spell was a result of that SSW we had back in late November? What are the chances of another one seeing as we are in at E, QBO? Thanks.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/Posts/t24529-Late-December-2025-to-early-January-2026-cold-spell 

4/10

A delayed start meant that Xmas Day, whilst chilly, wasn't as cold as it had been modelled several days earlier. We missed out on early snow, but it did arrive last Sunday morning with a fall of a couple of cm. That mostly melted, but another bout of snow on the night gave 2-3cm then promptly froze and stayed on the ground for a few days. Had a couple of lovely walks in cold and frosty conditions, including a 'last hurrah!' on Saturday. Had a couple of harsh frosts (one enough to turn the cans of coke left in my car to slush) but also some nights it kept above freezing.

Overall, a run-of-the-mill cold snap that waxed and waned over a couple of weeks or so. Pretty standard (for recent years) snowfall that at least stayed with us a few days.

Oops - didn't see , sorry! thanks for letting me know anyway.

Thanks for that Sean.

I don't know whether or not you follow the Met Office's own YouTube channel but on a couple of occasions, Annie Shuttleworth who is a regular presenter on that channel confirmed that the recent cold spell had absolutely nothing to do with the recent SSW which you mentioned. On the last such occasion, her colleague who was also co-presenting with her at that time went on to say that this shows that we don't necessarily actually need an SSW in order for us to get any cold weather here.

Hopefully, that should answer the final question which you raised here.

Thanks. I do follow it but not heard from AS, I will have a look - yes I didn't think it was caused by the SSW back in end of November. But the PV has been displaced, more ragged and amplified. But just goes to show like with December 2022 or January 2025 last year we had cold and snowy weather without and SSW and this is another which occurred without an SSW. Although la Nina winters do favour a colder start - Hope there will be more to come given how cold Europe is currently.