Bringing its troubles of thrashing winds and spontaneous floods causing road obstruction, travel disruption and some housing left temporarily without power, many people are expecting Storm Bert to pay compensation in the form of a beautifully snowy Christmas this December.
Typically we think of a 'white Christmas' as those portrayed in the sparkly havens strewn across most Christmas cards, thick snow blanketing the ground and perched on the trees and rooftops. However, the exact definition is much more generous. All that constitutes a 'white Christmas' is if a snowflake is observed to be falling in the locations of Buckingham Palace, Aldergrove Airport (Belfast), Pittodrie Stadium (Aberdeen FC), Edinburgh Castle, Coronation Street (Manchester) or the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
This criteria vastly increases the probability of a White Christmas, but does more to misrepresent what many people see as a white Christmas in the traditional sense and underwhelm us in the end.
The last Christmas that had heavy snow, which has a closer alignment to colloquial idea of a white Christmas, was in 2010, which saw snowfall as early as the 24th of November - similar to onset of snow we are seeing from Storm Bert. But whether we view Storm Bert on the same benchmark as 'The Big Freeze' of 2010 is debatable, and therefore might not have the grounds to suggest that we will see heavy snow across much of Britain. After all, weather can be very unpredictable.
At the moment, it is too soon to know whether it will snow for Christmas for the broader country, or even for Scotland which notoriously has the better conditions for snow, and yet this year shows insufficient temperatures for snow settling. And so, Brits must wait in anticipation for what the forecast brings.
