"Record cold" What are the the various meteorological conditions/factors at play for the U.K. to approach the record low temp of -27.2oC? Snow cover,deep prolonged cold airmass over the U.K.,very short days,a prolonged lowering of daytime maxima followed by nighttime minima and finally H.P. over the U.K. for maximum irradiation. In the first cold spell at the start of the month Altnaharra recorded -22.1oC. Still -5.2oC short of surpassing the twice recorded U.K. record............ ...... We are now,according to the latest models,approaching the end of this memorable cold spell and could have a couple of days left to challenge the record minima,for 2010! In my analysis,both of my home town records from Fort William and the hourly records of Altnaharra at the Met Office latest hourly observations website i have observed an obvious trend in that whenever fog/mist/cloud cover arrives the temp at best stalls if not rise a touch.For example, today we have a 2 p.m. temp at Altnaharra of -17.5oC in zero wind speed but 5hrs later it has only dropped to -19.8oC ,again in zero wind speed with a cloudy symbol on the website.So, if things turned clear overhead from 7p.m. tonight in Alnaharra it would not be too unrealistic to expect a .7oC av hourly lowering drop in temp by 8.a.m. to record a new record of -28.9oC. Things are never that simple,in the last 30 years we have been close to the Scottish( -27.2)and English(-26.7) records for absolute minima in the U.K. so what are the widely held views on how and less importantly where we could break the record low minima in the U.K. in the medium term?