{"id":1800,"date":"2026-09-24T16:01:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T16:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/24\/why-winter-cold-spells-are-getting-milder\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T16:01:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T16:01:04","slug":"why-winter-cold-spells-are-getting-milder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/24\/why-winter-cold-spells-are-getting-milder\/","title":{"rendered":"Why winter cold spells are getting milder"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Beast from the East storm hit the UK in February-March 2018. <\/span> Ludovic Farine\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Beast from the East ravaged much of the UK and Europe in February and March 2018<\/a>, bringing severe storms, snow showers and bitter winds. But as the climate changes, rising average temperatures will affect the severity of extremely cold weather like this<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In our latest study<\/a>, my colleagues and I have considered how cold spells \u2013 defined as extended periods of extremely low temperatures between November and March \u2013 have changed since 1980.<\/p>\n

We found that cold spells such as the Beast from the East<\/a> are becoming less frequent and intense across the northern hemisphere. We also found that certain regions are experiencing less persistent cold spells, or more localised cold spells.<\/p>\n

Across the entire northern hemisphere, cold spell days have decreased by about 20 days per decade. In Europe, regional cold spells are declining in frequency by nearly one day every year.<\/p>\n

Large-scale cold spells in the northern hemisphere occur as a result of cold air intrusions, caused by the meandering of the polar jet stream<\/a>. Characterised by a flow of strong winds in the upper troposphere<\/a>, this jet stream acts as a barrier containing the cold air within the polar regions.<\/p>\n

However, when the polar jet stream meanders, the barrier is disrupted, allowing cold air to move towards the equator. This causes surface temperatures to drop.<\/p>\n

Since the Arctic is more sensitive to climate change, with temperatures in this region rising at a faster rate than the rest of the world<\/a>, many early<\/a> theories<\/a> suggested that this could lead to more frequent and intense cold spells.<\/p>\n

\n \"drone<\/a>
\n South London during a rare snow storm, March 2018.<\/span>
\n Alexander Gold\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But our study shows the reverse effect. Across the northern hemisphere, cold spells are becoming milder as overall temperatures rise, with their intensity having decreased by 0.3\u00b0C per decade. In the same manner, cold spells in Europe are becoming 0.6 to 0.9\u00b0C warmer per decade. Similar warming rates are also found in North America and in East Asia. <\/p>\n

The persistence of cold spells in northern North America and southern Europe is decreasing by about a tenth of a day each year. Likewise, the area covered by cold spells in northern North America is getting smaller every decade. <\/p>\n

A change in temperature variability<\/h2>\n

We have also explored how these cold spells would be affected if the long-term temperature rise related to climate change were removed. Under this scenario, we considered how the leftover effects related to changes in temperature variability \u2013 calculated by removing the long-term temperature rise \u2013 are affecting cold spell behaviour.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the cold spells showed no detectable change when the background temperature rise was removed. However, in northern North America under this scenario, cold spells were still found to become less severe.<\/p>\n

So, our study reveals that in northern North America, cold spells are becoming significantly less frequent, intense and persistent even when the impact of climate change is removed from our calculations. <\/p>\n

We suggest this is related to temperature variability decreasing in North America due to sea ice loss \u2013 an effect highlighted in previous studies<\/a>. In other words, the sea ice loss is potentially causing the cold extremes to warm faster than hot extremes.<\/p>\n

Our results show that as temperatures continue to rise, the cold spells experienced a few decades ago are becoming rarer across much of the northern hemisphere \u2013 and that cold, snowy winter days of the past are becoming increasingly uncommon for many people.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Weronika Osmolska receives funding from the Leeds-York-Hull Natural Environment Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership, Panorama, and from the UK Met Office through a CASE studentship. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beast from the East storm hit the UK in February-March 2018. Ludovic Farine\/Shutterstock The Beast from the East ravaged much of the UK and Europe in February and March 2018, bringing severe storms, snow showers and bitter winds. But as the climate changes, rising average temperatures will affect the severity of extremely cold weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}