By Jove! London Gets A Snow Day

‘Allo, guv’nuh! ‘Ow’s the wea-vuh?

Alright, enough with the terrible Cockney accents: London experienced the biggest snowfall in over 20 years when 7 inches blanketed the city on Monday, grinding the city to a halt and causing an estimated $1.8 billion in economic losses. Over six million Londoners stayed at home, hundreds of flights were canceled, and the city’s mass transit shut down almost completely.

But it wasn’t all bad news. Londoners hit the streets in droves, taking a rare opportunity to get out and play in the snow. Massive snowball fights, 12-foot snowmen, and other winter fun usually denied to Londoners helped bring communities together. Why, here’s footage of full-grown adults rolling a humongous snow-boulder through a city park:

Yes! Now that’s what I call making up for lost winters.

Naturally, car wrecks have been on the rise, and officials have tried to warn the woefully unprepared London citizenry of strange and exotic dangers like ‘black ice,’ saying things like, “If you are driving along and you cannot hear your wheels turning that probably means you are on ice.”

Um, good point. It’s especially important since London is expected to get crushed by an even bigger snowfall: As much as 10 inches are expected to dump on the city this Thursday. Meteorologists attribute the freak snowfall to a rare convergence of warm air from France with cold air from the north over Britain.

With 10 more inches, the snowy fun could only get crazier. Just make sure and watch out for the coppers, little blokes—it seems the Bobbies might start arresting kiddies for throwing snowballs. Rubbish, I say!

—Ted Alvarez

Snow Britain: Another 10 Inches of snow to hit by Thursday (Telegraph)