It's interesting, you know, as the term cold spell can encompass much!
For example,
A 5-day cold spell without any frost, but with the odd shortlived snow flurry on day 1
A 5-day cold spell with snow settling on day 1, lasting on the ground until day 5
A 5-day cold spell with two or more days with snow falling, snow-on-snow
A 5-day cold spell which drops six inches of powder snow, leading to drifts of several feet - which last for a couple of weeks after the cold spell ends.
The first is what we're having now, here in my part of Kent. The latter is what we had in 2018... and you can guess which one would be mildly disappointing, giving a sense of having wasted rare synoptics!
Or, in other words, snow maketh the cold spell. Get some snow on the ground, have it hang around for another day or two and most cold-lovers would be happy, I'd imagine!
Hopefully we'll all get to move down that little list I posted by the time this is over.
Originally Posted by: Retron