Much of the UK has seen a particularly dull and wet winter, which probably won't come as a surprise to many people. Provisional statistics suggest that there have been some exceptions: south-western Britain has been relatively sunny, while a large part of northern England and eastern Scotland has been particularly dull.
The main culprit through the second half of January and the first half of February was a stationary jet stream running over and to the south of the British Isles. High latitude blocking to the north and north-east kept bringing potential for cold and snowy weather to head in from the east and north-east, but the coldest air kept passing away to the north of Britain, while Britain stayed in a relatively mild south to south-easterly flow for much of the time.
The lows kept taking similar tracks, giving repeated spells of rain to the same areas, and at times they stalled against the Scandinavian blocking high, giving slow-moving bands of rain. South-western areas were relatively sunny partly because they were more often affected by brighter, showery weather to the south and west of the rain bands that made slow progress further north and east. Although eastern Scotland was typically to the north of the lows, a persistent south-easterly wind off the North Sea and orographic enhancement of rain to the east of high ground resulted in persistently dull and wet conditions nonetheless.
Although Britain avoided the coldest air, apart from the week of northerlies at the beginning of January, temperatures were often not particularly mild during the spell from mid-January to mid-February. It was quite common to see rain falling at temperatures between 2 and 4C. With the current UK climate running about a degree warmer than the climate that I grew up in during the 1980s and 1990s, I get a sense that had the same synoptic setup happened a few decades ago, some of that rain may well have ended up as snow at low levels. However, the lack of substantially cold weather would have meant that, even back then, the snow probably wouldn't have stuck around for long and would quickly have turned to slush afterwards, so it would still not have been a classic winter for snow lovers.
The first week of January brought the most substantial "northerly" snowfalls for some time to some areas of the country, particularly northern Scotland and areas near the east coast of England, where the northerlies were cold enough to produce falling and lying snow down to sea level. In many recent winters, northerlies have tended to deliver mainly sleety showers to these coastal areas, but the early January 2026 northerly brought conditions that were more typical of northerly blasts prior to the mid-2000s. Parts of southern England also had lying snow from a "Cheshire Gap" feed of snow showers near the beginning of the northerly spell. Also, some areas, particularly in Lincolnshire and East Anglia, had a surprise area of snow showers turn up overnight 4th/5th January, assisted by convergence along a weak front as a north-westerly flow was replaced by a northerly.
Conversely, some parts of central and eastern Europe have indeed ended up with a cold winter. Much of Scandinavia has had a colder than average winter, which was also the case in 2023/24, when there was frequent blocking over Greenland that generally didn't extend far south enough to bring cold snowy weather to Britain, but often brought cold northerlies into Scandinavia.
At higher elevations in the Scottish Highlands, the pattern that I mentioned for eastern Scotland ended up bringing large quantities of snow via easterly and south-easterly winds, although conditions have not always been ideal for skiing, due to strong winds, drifting snow and low visibility. Combined with a lot of snow from northerly winds in the first half of January, much of the Highlands has had a snowy winter by recent standards, after a slow start during December.
However, research into Scottish snow patch survivals tends to suggest that, despite it being a snowy winter, 2026 may not necessarily be a high year for snow patch survivals. The snow fell mainly from south-easterly, easterly and northerly winds, which blows large drifts into south and west-facing hollows, which are prone to receiving a lot of sunshine in the summer half-year. The years when large amounts of snow survive in Scotland typically follow winters that have the usual prevailing westerly and south-westerly winds but which are not particularly mild in the Highlands (e.g. 1993/94, 1999/2000, 2014/15), which blow drifts into north and east-facing hollows. Freeze-thaw episodes when mild south-westerlies alternate with cold north-westerlies help to consolidate the snow pack. The current snow pack in the Highlands has potential to melt quickly during the spring and summer, and this process is already underway with the onset of much warmer weather in late February.
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