Frozen in time

In "Frozen In Time", TV weathermen Ian McCaskill and Paul Hudson take you back to the days when snowdrifts were as high as houses, 'below zero' meant below 0 degrees Fahrenheit and when the onset of Spring was heralded not by the dawn chorus but the sound of bursting pipes. "Frozen In Time" explains why such winters happen and why they might return. It journeys back into history to 'The Year of No Summer', 'The Famine Winter' and the years when 'Frost Fairs' were held on the frozen Thames, and it tells the stories of the three worst winters of the twentieth century - arguably the worst winters ever: 1947 - the snowiest winter ever recorded, when blizzards raged for days and weeks on end, snowdrifts cut off large parts of the country and when the thaw finally came, it brought with it the worst floods ever recorded; 1963 - the coldest winter ever, when icefloes choked our rivers, the sea froze for 100 yards off shore, and millions of farm animals and wild creatures froze or starved to death; and, 1979 - 'The Winter of Discontent', when the savage snows and frosts were made worse by the strikes that paralysed Britain, causing power cuts, fuel shortages, transport snarl-ups, and left dustbins unemptied, hospitals unstaffed and bodies unburied for weeks on end.

Ian McCaskill brings a unique perspective to these three severe winters, having experienced as a child the severe conditions of 1947 and then as a meteorologist and BBC weather forecaster reporting on the severe winters of '63 and '79. His personal recollections will strike a chord with anyone who lived through these periods.

Paul Hudson, one of BBC Look North's most popular presenters and famous for his cheerful presenting style and studio banter, explains the implications of global warming and its direct relation to severe weather conditions.