Will the real avg. annual snowfall for London please stand?
I was looking at the . I saw this astonishing weather statistic:
Snowfall cm (inches) [year] 46.7 (18.39)
and instantly thought "bullocks". That is a lot of snow. It's more snow than Seattle. It's even more snow than Washington, DC, which is much colder in winter! (average Jan. low of -2.6C vs. 2.3C for London) Media reports of the past couple years have indicated that London is unused to even small amounts of snow (by US standards) and has had its roads paralyzed because there aren't enough snowplows or gritters. A city with 18 inches of snow a year on average, would certainly be expected to be prepared for it!
The wiki cites this source:
ftp://dossier.ogp.noaa.gov/GCOS/WMO-Nor ... /03776.TXTSo, this is curious right from the start, that a US source is having to be cited at all. Yet in my 20-30 minutes of google searches, I could find no 'official' UK snowfall averages. In terms of cm or inches. It's almost as though the figure isn't kept. Days of snow falling? Yes. Days of "Snow on ground" - yes. Actual amounts? No. "Who would want to have to dash outside and stick a ruler in the ghastly stuff" I guess? That being said I'm surprised London even sees 4 days of snow in Jan. & Feb (each). I almost wonder if someone at the "World Meteorological Organization" - the actual source of the data NOAA collated, decided to use a standardized index relating days of snow to snowfall amounts...how else could they have generated such an implausible figure?