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The change comes as a result of a link between the sun and the high altitude jet stream winds, explained Prof Mike Lockwood of the department of meteorology at the University of Reading.
He and colleagues have established a link between low solar activity and a phenomenon known as "jet stream blocking".
It causes a change in the normal weather patterns, keeping warmer Atlantic air away and instead channelling frigid Arctic and Siberian air across western Europe, including Ireland, he said.
"It looked last week like we had a blocking event formed," he said. "The phenomenon is really a snaking of the jet stream. It can start to pull lower altitude, cold Russian air back in over Europe."
Solar activity in this case does not mean heat or light from the sun but the energy emitted from the solar surface by sunspots.
This affects the upper atmosphere, which in turn influences conditions closer to the ground.
Prof Lockwood, who is also based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in Oxfordshire, has shown that historically when sunspot activity is low, the jet stream changes direction to bring on the freezing weather.
The sun is currently very quiet, having recently passed through the "solar minimum", the low point in an 11-year solar cycle that peaks at the "solar maximum".
This will lead to more cold spells in the next few months and years, he believes.
"November is a pretty good predictor of what December through February is going to be like," he said.
Yet while stockpiling of road grit may have to continue for the next few years, these conditions did not mean that climate change was over, Prof Lockwood warned.
"The big thing people need to appreciate is the weather they experience on a local or a regional scale is not the same thing as global temperatures," he said.
"Our colder winters mean almost nothing in terms of global averages. That is why climate change is a better term than global warming."
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Heatwave warning for 2070
November 26, 2010
THE PARIS of 2070 will have the same climate as Seville today, according to French scientists.
The Observatoire national sur les effets du réchauffement climatique (Onerc) has published predictions that the capital will not suffer the cold winters currently buffeting the streets, but will be subject to a milder sunnier climate.
However, it adds that deadly heatwaves, like the one that struck Europe in 2003, killing between 10,000-15,000 people in France alone, will become more common.
"The summer of 2003 will be the average by 2070, meaning, one summer in two will be hotter," said Météo-France researcher Stéphane Hallegatte, presenting the figures yesterday.
While such heatwaves have been marked by the number of deaths, the general impact of hotter summers would be felt more widely, he said.
"People forget there are consequences beyond a higher death rate. There are delays in public transport, the breakdown of air-conditioning, small shops losing customers to bigger air-conditioned centres," added Mr Hallegatte.
Based on a rise in average temperatures of 3.5 degrees between now and 2070, the north of France will enjoy a Mediterranean type of climate, however, unlike urban areas around the Mediterranean, most towns and cities are not prepared for this.
Flash floods and subsidence are just some of the problems they will face, the report says.
THE east and centre of France are on orange alert for snow. The Côtes d'Armor, Vienne, Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Charente, Dordogne and Corrèze departments could see difficult driving conditions.