THE astronomical winter may start on December 21, but in the UK meteorologists consider it to begin on the first of the month. With good reason. Cast your mind back just seven years and December saw heavy snowfalls, record low temperatures, travel chaos and school disruption.

2010 had the UK’s coldest December since Met Office records began in 1910, with a mean temperature of minus 1C, breaking the previous record of 0.1C in December 1981. It also saw the earliest widespread winter snowfall since 1993, with the first flurries falling as early as November 24 across North Yorkshire.

Fortunately we don’t get too many real stinkers, rarely more than one a decade in fact.

Perhaps the cruellest were in 1940, the last thing this country needed in the middle of the Blitz, and the terrible winter of 1947 when the country was still trying to get back on its feet after the war.

It was the coldest in three centuries, there were massive disruptions to the energy supply and animal herds froze or starved to death.

No one could keep warm and many businesses shut down temporarily. When warm weather returned, the ice thawed and flooding was severe in most low-lying areas.

York Press:

Blizzard conditions in North Yorkshire in this old photo...

1952 wasn’t much better, with the Great London Smog of December which claimed the lives of around 4,000 people. Then, of course, ten years later, Britain experienced the famous big freeze of 1962-63.

Temperatures plummeted, while lakes and rivers began to freeze over. It remains the coldest winter overall since 1895, which climatologists view as the end of the Little Ice Age and the culmination of a decade of harsh winters in Britain.

This was the last time the Thames froze over and skating festivals were organised to take advantage of unusually cold, sunny weather, with up to 50,000 people skating on The Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park.

York Press:

A farm worker braving the snow to feed animals

But one thing all these winters had in common was an unseasonably mild November preceding them.

And we’ve just had another one, so here’s a reminder of how severe winter can be in North Yorkshire – just in case you’re thinking of wishing for a white Christmas.

York Press:

Paddle power: Canoeing through the ice of the River Ouse