A winter storm on the night of March 22–23 brought heavy snow, strong winds, and cold weather to Northern England, Northern Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. The storm was described as “the worst snowfall for 30 years” and at least two people died and many cattle buried under snow drifts.
It’s April 4th 2013 and the worst blizzards have just hit across Mid, North and Northeast Wales, possibly since January 1982. The latter storm was compared to this one quite off-the-scale: the important difference being that the 2013 blizzard struck as lambing was getting underway. Losses across hill-country were considerable. Farmers who brought their stock into shelter were not spared either as the immense pressure of heaped-up snow caused roof-collapse in a number of cases. It’s been pretty disastrous in other words. The Welsh government has recently announced that dead stock can be buried on farms (normally they have to be collected and disposed of at twenty pounds per head), but currently this gesture stands for just seven days. Some of the bigger drifts will take weeks to go before they reveal what may lie frozen beneath them. This burial exemption must surely be extended. On some farms the toll may be into the hundreds and farmers, already stretched at both ends by overdrafts and grasping and idiotic supermarket buying policies, need a break right now.