What do we mean by a cold or seriously cold ‘snap’ ?

[stewfox]

No serious cold in sight and probably a few warm days towards the end of the month. Let's say 7.4.

What do we mean by a cold or seriously cold 'snap' ?

I was wondering what people consider as 'serious cold' or a serious cold snap to be 'now days' for say middle England

For me a serious cold snap would have to be a week of temps at max 0c to say 2c with hard night frosts. Say Feb 86 or Jan 87 (last one I can really 'remember')

What about March or even April, I guess a few days of lying snow etc

I suppose meteorologist could defined a cold snap as just one day is there a definition for a 'cold snap' i.e. at least 3/4c below average etc for at least 2/3 days ?

[johnholmes]

The Met O uses -4 to -5C below the average for any place as cold through the period November to mid March.

Thus for here with daytime max's of 7-8C now then it would be classed as cold if the max temps were around +2C to +4C be it one day or more.

hope that helps

the chances of temperatures like you suggest, in this part of the world, from now on are fairly small for more than 1-2 days together.

[stewfox]

The Met O uses -4 to -5C below the average for any place as cold through the period November to mid March.

Thus for here with daytime max's of 7-8C now then it would be classed as cold if the max temps were around +2C to +4C be it one day or more.

hope that helps

the chances of temperatures like you suggest, in this part of the world, from now on are fairly small for more than 1-2 days together.

So you could have a cold snap of one day ?? 'technically' ??

I assume you mean a chance of another Feb 86 are now remote ?? which i assume was a 'sustained cold snap' ?