The British usually expect one or two snowfalls each year but the amount of snow rarely affects everyday life. However, this week Britain has had the worst snow it has seen in around 18 years. Some places had more than 30cm in a day.

The bad weather caused severe disruption¹. More than 3000 schools had to close as teachers and pupils were unable to get to school.

School children weren’t too unhappy about it though as they headed out to play in the snow, building snowmen, having snowball fights, sledging² and some even snowboarding and skiing.

In London, bus services were withdrawn³ for a day and tubes and trains were cancelled. Major motorways⁴ in the country had to close.

Many people were unable to get to work and it is thought the cost of this lost labour is around £1 billion (10 billion yuan) to businesses and the economy.

Anyone wanting to leave the country had problems too. Runways were closed at all the UK’s major airports because of the amount of snow. Hundreds of flights were cancelled leaving some passengers stranded⁵ at airports.

So why is the UK so ill-prepared for snow? The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, explained that there aren’t enough snow-ploughs and gritters and it doesn’t make sense to buy such equipment when it snows so infrequently.

The south-east of England was the hardest hit at the beginning of the week but the snow is now moving northwards where the chaos⁶ continues.

More ice and snow is forecast throughout the week and the advice from travel and weather organisations is to stay indoors unless you really need to venture out!