It's Buchan cold
Post categories: weather
| 15:56 UK time, Wednesday, 10 February 2010
There's been a few snow flurries in places today but don't get too excited - I'm not expecting much more snow over the next couple of days at least here in Wales.
Most of the snow will be in Kent. But it is going to stay cold with some more sunshine and frost.
Cold weather around this time of the year is called a Buchan cold spell.
Alexander Buchan was a meteorologist born in Scotland in the 19th century.
He was the first person to use a weather map as the basis of weather forecasting and using statistical methods he developed the so-called 'Buchan spells' - either cold or warm spellsÌýthat he claimed happened at roughly the same time each year.
The first cold spell is in the week leading up to Valentine's day - the next one is around the second week of April. The first Buchan warm spell is in the second week of July.
The Buchan cold spells are:
7 to 14 February
11 - 14 April
9 - 14 May
29 June - 4 July
6 - 11 August
6 - 13 November
The Buchan warm spells are:
12 - 15 July
12 - 15 August
3 - 14 December
It would be great if these could be relied upon every year and would make my job easier, but in reality weather patterns tend to be much more random.
Derek
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