Gateway to snow covered fields on Colton Hills, Staffordshire

Image: © Roger D Kidd Taken: 19 Dec 2010

These are the fields north of Pennwood Lane, near the Penn area of Wolverhampton. Horses are grazing despite the low temperatures. Following two weeks of very cold conditions, about 12-15cm of snow had fallen the previous day, and temperatures had been down as low as -12°C overnight, staying below freezing during the day. Fog and low cloud had quite suddenly lifted or dispersed about twenty minutes earlier but the temperature was still well below zero at the time of the image, 12:41 GMT. Note: a week later, the temperature had still only briefly risen just above freezing, causing many icicles to form on buildings, and nearly all this snow remains. During the very early hours of 27 December icicles began to fall off my house, and quite a rapid thaw followed, with some light rain during the afternoon.

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