Here in Belgium we had perfectly fine winter weather in the weeks leading up to Winter Solstice, but then it started turning and suddenly around year's end it was a record high for the time of year. It's quite welcome though, considering the energy crisis.
Two essential rules by which to judge this headline and story:<p>1. Never take seriously as an indicator of any massively complex trend or long-term tendency any headline from a single paper or small selection of media outlets whose express mission is to desperately seek attention and hype up drama from any possible thing, no matter how tenuously related to anything wider.<p>2. Do not assume that one specific regional weather trend of a certain brief time's duration is an actual indicator of something bigger and more complex, especially if other contrary trends are happening at the same time elsewhere. (human effects on climate change are real, but media and uninformed people pointing to any specific individual weather event as proof of them are little better than someone who doesn't believe there's human caused global warming using a single cold winter where they live as proof of their own contrary argument.)