Will the ‘Beast from the East’ snow its face?

“A snow emergency has been declared in Kent.” BBC News

Gordie Jackson
2 min readFeb 26, 2018
Photo by Jeffrey Blum on Unsplash

The big story here in the UK is the cold. Yes, it is cold unusually so for the end of February but what I don’t recall was a weather warning taking on almost festival status. I heard an announcement at the station on Sunday that trains were already being rescheduled for Tuesday. We hadn’t finished the weekend never mind the fact we hadn’t yet hit Monday.

Outside has the atmosphere of Christmas Eve, everyone is indoors and that silence that only comes with coldness has descended. I have just travelled on the M25 ( motorway that circles London) and there is little traffic on it. The lighted signs keep telling us of ‘Advance Severe Weather Warning’. The service station is quieter than usual though I am still here hitting the keys.

I look up and the news screens flash footage of snow, snow and more snow. “A snow emergency has been declared in Kent.” The media has given it a name, ‘The Beast from the East’.

I feel like I am inside an apocalyptic film, “Will I survive the night of prophesied snow?”

It is moments like this when you can feel comforted by the collective reaction, “It is us against the snow”. Stories will be born of this night, “Do you remember the night that the Great Snow was to fall?” Whether it does or not no longer matters as we are all hyped up.

I keep looking up the windows to see if it has begun to fall. My own notion is if it were going to fall it would already be here. That said snow being snow I could be surprised in the morrow.

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For the strong of heart — I probably should sing a carol or two rather than a harvest hymn

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Gordie Jackson
Gordie Jackson

Written by Gordie Jackson

Speaks with a Northern Irish accent, lives in Hertfordshire, England.