Renewables: the science

FREEZING weather conditions cannot, by definition, exist if there are high winds, according to Met Office experts.

"When it is windy, you may think it feels cold because the wind chill is there," explained Stuart Brookes, a forecaster from the Met Office in Aberdeen.

"But the actual temperature doesn't fall through the floor like it can do when conditions are calm. The more wind there is, the more it tends to be closer to the air mass temperature."

He added that very cold temperatures could not be produced unless conditions were very still - trapping pockets of icy air close to the ground.

"The really cold temperatures occur when there are shallow layers of really cold air which aren't moving at all," he said. "That can't happen if there is wind present to blow them away."