Britain set to lose its longest-lasting patch of snow this weekend for only the sixth time in 300 years

Britain is set to lose its longest-lasting patch of snow this weekend for the first time in more than a decade – an event which has happened just six times in the past 300 years.

The patch at Garbh Choire Mor on Braeriach in the Scottish Cairngorms, nicknamed the Sphinx, may be gone as soon as this weekend.

All of the snow in Britain has melted only six times in the past 300 years – in 1933, 1953, 1959, 1996, 2003 and 2006.

The loss comes as Met Office experts confirmed the “slowdown” in global warming is over.

Climate sceptics had pointed to the slowing rate of temperature rises or “pause” as contradicting evidence of ongoing climate change, although experts said other signs of a warming world, such as rising sea levels, continued during that time.

But a change in the natural pattern of warm and cool phases in Pacific sea surface temperatures, which have an impact on global temperatures, has brought the slowdown to an end.

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Now, with the last three years each breaking the annual record for global temperatures, the slowdown is over.

Stirling-based ‘snow patcher’ Iain Cameron, 44, said the melting snow was “just one of those things”.

He added: “We’ll just have to wait until next year to see them again.”

A second patch of snow, which Cameron also believes will melt this weekend, lies 3,133 ft up at Aonach Beag.