Birmingham could be in line for a White Christmas
DUST off your snowshoes and head down to the bookies, because we could be looking at a white Christmas in Birmingham this year.
Bookies are slashing their odds on snow falling in Birmingham as another cold snap looms on the horizon.
Two days ago, William Hill’s odds were 8-1 that Britain’s second city would see snow but yesterday these were brought down to 6-1.
For the city to have an official white Christmas only one flake of snow has to fall on the roof of the Bullring – which has to be confirmed by the Met Office. Rupert Adams, from William Hill, said: “To be honest, if you had asked me a few days ago if there was going to be a white Christmas in Birmingham I would have said it was unlikely.
“But we know that there’s a big chill coming that’s going to affect the whole country and I would say now that there’s a much greater chance of us seeing snow in Birmingham on Christmas day.”
The Met Office is less confident of this year’s big day being a white one, and was unwilling to commit to whether we would see snow until closer to Christmas. But John Hammond, Met Office forecaster, confirmed that cold weather was expected in the next few days. At the moment it’s too early to say with any certainty what the weather’s going to be like in just over two weeks time.
“There’s too many different factors to tell.
“We are going to see colder weather over the next week with some frosts and overnight fog. Temperatures are going to struggle by day too.
“We’re certainly looking at temperatures getting down to freezing or even a tad below that, it’s going to be a real change from the mild weather we’ve been having.”
He added: “There’s high pressure coming in, which is going to bring settled conditions and it’s going to be a change from the wet weather we’ve been having.
“Anything falling from the sky is going to have a distinctly wintery feel to it.”
The people of Birmingham will be crying out for a white Christmas this year as it has been nearly a decade since the last one.
But event that was hardly the stuff of festive tales as it only snowed for about 15 minutes at 9am on Christmas Day 2000.
The last time the city truly saw a white Christmas was during the harsh winter of 1981 when snow cover on Christmas Day in Birmingham had depths of between 10 and 15cms.
