I work for Vaisala, who some of you may have heard of with regard to weather sensors and systems, in their Birmingham office. I get to see a lot of data, particularly related to road weather, and can say that this cold spell is exceptional both in intensity and extent and especially for this time of the year. It is comparable to anything I've seen in the last 30 years in this line of work. At 1100 this morning only 6 of the 1200 or so road weather stations I can view data from in the UK and ROI were above 0C, and these were, with one exception, right on the NE coast. Nowhere in Cornwall was warmer than -2.5C and a station within a few km of Land's End was reporting -4C. I was in Finland yesterday, where at 8am it was -24C, but it felt no colder than the dog walk I went on here first thing this morning !