Why are winters in continental climates colder?
The main reason that continental winters are colder than those experienced here in the UK is that they don’t benefit from the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current that has the effect of keeping UK winters milder than they should be for somewhere at our latitude and moderates the intensity of any cold weather. On the near continent, the land cools very quickly in winter and without the moderating effect of surrounding warm waters, temperatures regularly fall to minus double figures. Has the current cold spell broken any records? This has probably been the most commonly asked question in recent weeks, more especially over the past few nights when temperatures have dropped as low as -12C (10F) in rural parts of Oxfordshire. Despite -12C sounding terribly cold, it is nowhere near record breaking. The current UK lowest temperature record stands at -27.2C (-17F) at Altnaharra in Scotland, which was last reached in December 1995, and before that the same temperature was record
