GLOBAL warming may have raised temperatures across Scotland but we may be getting more snow than ever before - even though it's not guaranteed on Christmas Day.
Dr Eddie Graham, a meteorologist at the University of the Highlands and Islands, has researched records to find the Northern Hemisphere has warmed by about half a degree centigrade in the past 40 years.
Citing research by Rutgers University in the US, Dr Graham said the total annual number of snow days per year over Europe has decreased, but with a large inter-annual variability. He added: "This overall decrease in snow cover, however, has not been replicated during the month of December - an anomaly that bucks the trend of decreasing snow cover in most other months.
"Indeed, it appears that December has even become slightly more snowy over the past 40 years across Scotland and Europe as a whole - we only need to recall the very snowy Decembers of 2009 and 2010 to confirm this."
Dr Graham predicts an increasing chance of colder weather by the time Santa arrives, with the odd sleet flurry.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article