Birmingham is the UK’s second snowiest city, according to winter weather experts

Birmingham has been named the UK's second snowiest city with more snow days than Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford.

Using historical weather data from the Met Office, Leonardo Hotels explored the snowiest cities in the UK - with Birmingham weather only being beaten by Sheffield.

You may be surprised to learn that our landlocked English city is more snowy than the Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow according to the study which looked back 40 years from 1981 to 2020.

But that’s what the data has shown - with a bumper lot of nine snow days in our city - accompanied by 14 frost days. You can visit a Leonardo Hotel on Broad Street - they are also dotted around the country. You can see the full listing here:

It’s certainly turned frosty this week and the white stuff has already made an appearance in the Midlands with small sprinkles spotted across the region on Tuesday (November 28). The Met Office has said that we could see snow in Birmingham, itself - on hilly parts of the city, later today (Thursday, November 30). 

Weather forecasts of frosts and flurries of snow continue throughout Friday and Sunday for Birmingham. But the jury is still out on whether we’ll get a white Christmas, with current predictions pointing towards warmer than average temperatures with wintry hazards.

In addition to looking at the UK’s snowiest cities, researchers for Leonardo Hotels also studied Britain’s snowiest areas - with rural, countryside areas more likely to receive snowfall than urban areas where there is excess heat.

Cairngorms National Park in Scotland is one of the most popular snow sports destinations in the UK, with the park receiving on average 76 days of snow each year. This is followed by the Shetland Islands situated North of mainland Scotland with weather stations recording on average 64 days of snowfall. The Scottish Island Fair Isle comes in third place with 62 snow days, with the Orkney Island just off the tip of mainland Scotland having 59 days.

The village of Copley in County Durham rounds off the top five locations, with 53 days of snowfall on average each year closely followed by the village of Leadhills with 52 days.

Widdybank Fell is located in the North Pennines in County Durham and receives 50 days of snowfall alongside the village of Eskdalemuir in Dumfries and Galloway. The village of Kinbrace located in the Scottish Highlands receives on average 49 days of snow each year alongside Kockanrock, also located in the highlands.

A spokesperson for Leonardo Hotels  said: “Located in the most vibrant towns and cities across the UK and Ireland, our hotels are each hand-picked for their prime position close to the country's top attractions, amenities and transport hubs.”