in my own very humble opinion, the winters since 2005/2006 have been getting cooler with more snow events, with october and november snowfalls, 2007 and 2008, spells of 15-20 days with frosts and ice, im an electrician and wrk on large sites, for the last 15 years, so im basing my opinion on what im experiencing , i was working at donnington park jan - april 2006, and there were at least 6 occasions of heavy snow, jan and feb were cold all month! previous to that dec 2005 was very cold dry and icy, november december 2006 was freezing december 2 weeks of freezing fog, 3 inches of snow in november 2007, then very cold and dry october snow in 2008 followed by almost a frost every day in nov and december, cold freezing 1st 2 weeks of jan 2009 then the snow fun in february, now a very cold dec 2009, does anyone else have opinions on this, is a pattern to colder longer winters returning???