Tuesday briefing: How Britain has coped with an Arctic blast

A member of a Mountain Rescue team after helping to clear cars from a snow drift near Ribblehead, in North Yorkshire. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Good morning.

British winters have grown markedly milder over the past century: analysis has shown that the average UK winter has gotten 1C warmer and 15% wetter in the last century. Last February was the warmest in recorded history. There have been fewer and fewer snow days and the Met Office found that ground frost periods are three weeks shorter compared to the 1970s.