From skating on the lake to “Snowmageddon”: changing expectations of winter weather in the age of anthropogenic climate change

This paper outlines generational changes in how communities and individuals understand, relate to, and narrate winter weather. Drawing on a range of oral histories and archival records from Canada and the UK, the paper introduces the main narrative-forms that people use to recount their memories of the cold, snow and other winter conditions. In doing so, I show that participant’s memories of winter are shaped by both their immediate local community and wider popular culture. In particular, I demonstrate how popular media forecasting and reporting on specific winter storms has influenced an outsized cultural footprint, which is reflected in the memories collated as part of this research. By exploring the differences in memories from respondents in different climatological locales, the paper highlights the importance of not only place, but also family and community in informing individual’s expectations of winter extremities. I then use these nuanced, inconsistent and messy memories of winters past to highlight the contingent and plural ways that people and communities conceive of their climate. In closing, I ask whether media emphasis on the scientific credentials of climate change, has come at the expense of place-specific narratives and the emotive attachment they confer, which is so crucial for affecting behavioural change?

From skating on the lake to “Snowmageddon”: changing expectations of winter weather in the age of anthropogenic climate change Conferences