What a difference a week makes: six days ago Aviemore was the hottest place in Scotland, basking in 31C temperatures. Yesterday, visitors to the Cairngorms were shivering in snow blizzards.

What a difference a week makes: six days ago Aviemore was the hottest place in Scotland, basking in 31C temperatures.

Yesterday, visitors to the Cairngorms were shivering in snow blizzards, wrapped up warm as they built snowmen on the slopes after the mercury plunged to zero.

Twin 17-year-olds Jeanette and Elizabeth McGregor took advantage of the unexpected two inch snowfall to create their own frozen figure while Cairngorm Mountain employee Derek Pritchard was sweeping snow off the viewing gallery to prevent any tourists slipping on the surface.

Company spokesman Colin Kirkwood said: "It is not unprecedented to have snow at this time of year. In fact a few years ago there was snow on midsummer's day. Our rangers say that we strangely get a snowfall shortly after a warm spell.

"But, although we are an all-year-round attraction, a fresh summer snowfall still creates a buzz round the resort and there are people who enjoy boasting that they have skiied the Cairngorms every month of the year.

"It is surprising how many people head up the hills just to see the snow in summer. It can be quite an attraction."

Parts of northern England also had a taste of winter yesterday. It was already a chilly day before heavy rain falling across the Cumbrian fells and the north Pennines helped to lower the temperature sufficiently for the rain to turn to sleet, and then to wet snow.

While roads stayed largely clear, snow did settle on the hillsides, notably around Upper Teesdale and Weardale.

The most significant June snowfall in memory came on June 2, 1975, when sleet and snow showers fell in many parts of the country, lying up to six inches deep in higher parts of Scotland.

Snow settled on hills just south of Birmingham, and was observed further east and south, notably in Cambridge and London but also at Colchester, where it interrupted the county cricket match between Essex and Kent.

More famously, the match between Derbyshire and Lancashire at Buxton was called off. Even given Buxton's altitude, it was remarkable that an inch of snow managed to settle on the outfield. More recently, on June 7, 1985, there was snow at Eskdalemuir in Dumfriesshire.