Britain is famous for fish and chips, the Beatles and tea, but as the weather conditions worsen, we British are becoming renowned for the way we cope with snow. Or more the way that we don’t.
Here in Cheltenham we’re experiencing temperatures of -5°c which feels like -12°c according to the Met Office, and despite the multiple weather warnings, we clearly weren’t ready for it.
Cheltenham’s twin town, Sochi, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014, is a huge 9°c warmer than Cheltenham at the moment. With Russia among the coldest counties in the world, it’s no wonder we’re struggling to cope with this cold snap.
Schools are closed all over the county, and most supermarkets are running out of the essentials. But why do Brits hide out when snow hits?
Compared to other counties like Norway and Japan the snow situation in the UK is pretty tame. To the rest of the world, Cheltenham’s three inches of snow seems pathetic.
Me, a Norwegian, seeing British people complain about “snow”: pic.twitter.com/nZeHv2yczN
— Mads (@muftimads) February 28, 2018
But still, Brits are losing their heads. The first snowflake to fall usually panics the majority of headteachers and sparks the closing of schools county-wide. The second sees families sprinting to the shops to scope out what’s left of all of the break and milk in the UK. And the third leaves drivers sliding across roads like they’re an ice rink.
The fact of the matter is that despite a week’s worth of warnings, we weren’t prepared for this snow. The amber and red weather warnings across the country have sent us into a state of chaos. People have been trapped on motorways because they didn’t link the impending Storm Emma with the fact that it probably wasn’t very safe to drive.
And I’ll never know why bread and milk fly off the shelves when a storm is looming. Who wants to live on bread and milk for a week anyway?
