Christmas Day is upon us, and households will be gathering to see their loved ones and enjoy a festive feast. Many will be hoping for some snow fall to really enhance that cosy yuletide atmosphere.
Britain often sees a “white Christmas“, classed by the Met Office as being when at least a single snowflake is “observed falling on the 24 hours of 25 December, by either an official Met Office observer or by a Met Office automated weather station”.
There are hundreds of automated weather observing stations across the country. According to the national weather service, the last white Chrismas was technically in 2023, when 11% of stations recorded snow falling, though none of them reported any snow lying on the ground.
But the Met Office says the last widespread white Christmas seen in the country was some 15 years ago, in December 2010.
Read on as we look back at that snow-covered festive period, as Britain was turned into a winter wonderland in the lead-up to Christmas.
A family walk in Wrington on Boxing Day, 2010.
The UK saw heavy snowfall in the lead up to Christmas 2010, including in Wrington, North Somerset.
Elsewhere in the country, records were set for snow depth, including in Cae Poeth, in Gwynedd, which saw a foot and a half of snow on Christmas Day, the most ever recorded in Wales on that date.
