Polling day weather to be wet and cold, say forecasters

Voters across the UK will head to the polls on Thursday amid wet and chilly conditions for the first December general election in almost a century.

Although much of the country will have just eight hours’ daylight, and some marginal constituencies are set to experience wintry conditions, it is not expected that the weather will affect turnout.

The Met Office is predicting showers in eastern parts of Scotland, where the SNP is defending a majority of just two in the closest seat in the country, North East Fife, and ultra-marginal constituencies in England could also see some bad conditions.

“It’s going to be a chilly start; temperatures will have fallen down to near freezing overnight,” Met Office senior meteorologist Craig Snell said of the weather in Perth and Fife on Thursday.

“Through the course of the day there will be a few showers around, but compared to England it should be dry. Some will have a wintry side across higher ground, but across lower levels it will be falling as rain.”

On London, he said: “[It will] start off cold but dry and bright, but as we go through the course of Thursday, we’re going to see a band of rain moving through from the west, reaching London around lunchtime.

Kensington - with a Labour majority of 20 - and Richmond Park - with a Conservative majority of 45 - will have wet conditions as a band of rain moves towards London throughout the morning.

Dudley North, with a Labour majority of 22, will also be wet throughout the morning before an afternoon dry spell is expected to precede further rain at the end of the day in the West Midlands.

Two other close Scottish constituencies – Glasgow South West and Glasgow East – both held by the SNP with majorities of 60 and 75, respectively, are likely to experience showers.

“Temperatures in Glasgow are going to be around the freezing mark, in the centre probably about two to three, and in the outskirts between zero and minus one,” Snell said. “We’ve got a greater chance of seeing showers in Glasgow than we have in the east, but compared to England, looking a lot dryer.”

On Wednesday, there were 27 flood warnings across Scotland and eight in England and Wales. Heavy rain was expected on Thursday in Cardiff, but only light rain is set to fall in Edinburgh and Belfast.

However, academics do not expect bad weather to adversely effect neither turnout nor results.

Chris Hanretty, a politics professor at Royal Holloway University, found no significant statistical link between rain on the day of the EU referendum in 2016 and voter turnout.

“The effects of weather on turnout are small, if they exist, and the effects on vote share are tiny. Less than one-fifth of 1% in an extreme case,” he wrote on Twitter.

Polling expert John Curtice said there was limited evidence showing that wintry weather had deterred voters previously. In fact, he said the highest turnout in a postwar election came during a winter election – in February 1974.

“We obviously don’t have much experience of winter elections but we have had two at the back of winter, in February 1974, when turnout was almost 79%, six points up from 1970, and the highest ever turnout in the postwar period was in February 1950, when the turnout was almost 84%,” he told CNBC.

Regarding the shorter days, Curtice said December is dark but it is not the coldest or darkest month, and that January and February are often worse.