Melting ice rinks and giant sprouts: is warm weather ruining winter this year?
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Version 0 of 1. Christmas is rarely the snow-covered idyll that British people see on their advent calendars, but we do at least expect it to be nippy. This year, however, thanks in part to a strong El Niño – a warm phase in the Pacific Ocean current that tracks back and forth between South America and Australia – it feels as though we’re still waiting for autumn to end, let alone winter to really get going. In much of England and Wales over the weekend, temperatures were expected to reach the mid-teens, perhaps even 17C in places. Mild doesn’t really do it justice; warm is what it is. Besides being unfestive, the weather is also playing havoc with much of what we’re used to. In the Olympic Park in London, daffodils that were supposed to be waiting for the spring are already in bloom. There is similar warm weather across the Atlantic, too, where residents of Washington DC have spent advent surrounded by cherry blossom. For some businesses, this is serious. All over the country, public ice rinks set up especially for the holidays are turning into public puddles. If you sell warm clothes, December is meant to be boom time, but a quick look at most high streets is enough to show that the boom simply hasn’t happened this year. Even if it does get cold in January, much of the trade will have been lost, because Christmas will be over. Many clothes shops – including Debenhams, H&M, Gap, Jack Wills and M&S – have responded by launching their Boxing Day sales about a fortnight early, offering discounts that average more than 40%. In some respects, however, the weird weather could be good news. Many hibernating animals, such as bats and hedgehogs, are effectively getting a much longer autumn in which to fatten up for the winter, should it ever arrive. The fattening-up of humans also gets some help, from what looks like a giant brussels sprout harvest (literally a harvest of giant sprouts, which have been able to grow much larger than usual). However, the warmth is bad for fruit such as blackcurrants, which need long periods of cold weather. Less predictable is the effect on the winter flu season. On the one hand, warm weather is often said to make people mingle more, increasing the chance of infection. On the other, viruses tend not to survive so long in warmer conditions, making them less likely to infect people. So if you don’t have snow this Christmas, but you don’t have flu either, perhaps that’s something to celebrate. |