Once we are past the Winter Solstice, the shortest day or longest night depending upon your point of view, the days lengthen, by around two minutes and 8 seconds a day. The impact is almost imperceptible but as the accretion of extra daylight is cumulative, by the time we get to the Summer Solstice we have gained an extra eight hours and 43 daylight, only to lose it all again as we move once more to the Winter Solstice.

Counter intuitively, though, as the old proverb “as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens” points out, the weather generally gets colder. Statistically, January and February are our coldest months. January 10, 1982 was particularly cold, setting the lowest recorded Temperature in the UK, -27.2C in Braemar, and in England, -26.1C at Edgmond, near Newport in Shropshire. A study of average daily temperatures over a period of 130 years revealed that the ten coldest days occurred between January 3^rd and February 20^th with five occurring between February 13^th and 20^th.

The records suggest that we should be particularly wary of February 17^th, the coldest day with an average minimum temperature of 0.8C and a maximum of 6.7C. However, such is the capricious nature of the British weather that you cannot be certain. While, in 1878, Llandudno was basking in a glorious 17.4C, the warmest temperature recorded for February 17^th, a year later the record for the lowest temperature was set, the mercury in Aviemore showing -23.1C.

The reason for this disconnect is all to do with the time it takes for the Earth’s land and water to heat up. Water, which covers around 71% of the Earth’s surface, has a much higher heat capacity than land and requires a lot more heat to raise its temperature. Like the coals of a fire, the Earth cools gradually and even though the days are lengthening, the amount of solar energy the ground receives in the two months after the Winter Solstice is less than what it is losing. When the pendulum begins to swing in favour of heat retention, the soil warms up and the flora and fauna wake up. Spring is on its way.

The balance between the rate at which the Earth retains and loses solar energy, known as the seasonal lag, also explains why our warmer weather, generally, occurs after the Summer Solstice, when the days are already beginning to shorten.

Our forefathers knew a thing or two.