Although the first few days of 2025 have seen temperatures drop in Cambridgeshire, we have managed to avoid the heavy snow that has gripped other regions in the UK. Photos from parts of south-west England, Wales, north-west England and the West Midlands show streets covered in blankets of white and lorries trailing grit onto roads.
Our county does not always swerve the snowy weather, however. One particularly freezing winter came in 2003, when snow left drivers stuck on the A14 and the M11 – with some stranded for more than 16 hours.
The snow started late in the afternoon as people were heading home from work, and it was so heavy that minor roads became impassable in less than an hour. As a result, main roads, including the A14 and M11, ground to a complete standstill.
Thousands of drivers spent the night in their cars, keeping as warm as they could, and waiting for rescue. Students from Samuel Ward Upper School in Haverhill, with French schoolchildren on an exchange visit, found themselves stuck on the M11 for 16 hours.
The sheer scale of the chaos meant the Army had to pitch in to help. On the Friday morning, a recovery vehicle and two Bedford trucks with heavy winches were on the M11 and the A14, moving stranded vehicles to clear the road.
Soldiers spent the Thursday night and most of Friday ferrying passengers from their vehicles to special “rest centres” set up by the police in Duxford, Swavesey and Trumpington.
Fifteen years later, on February 26, 2018, the Beast from the East hit the UK – including Cambridgeshire. The freezing conditions lasted until March 8, with almost every region seeing snow.
Easterly winds pushed temperatures down to -10C in some places, and Kent locals experienced a teeth-chattering -14C on February 28. In Cambridge, one brave punter was spotted carrying a group blanketed in snow during the Beast from the East, and a snap of this scene by photographer Martin Bond (A Cambridge Diary) made the front page of The Times.
Martin Bond’s punt photo can be found here. Take a look at photos of Cambridgeshire’s wintry weather since 2003 below.