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Climate change means there has been little snowfall in recent winters, with the greatest likelihood on higher ground of the capital’s edges. When it does fall and settles on the city, it is as described by the Victorian poet Robert Bridges: ‘the unaccustomed brightness / Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare’.

If summers are a little warmer than they were, temperatures are not generally so extreme as to pose a challenge to the walker, except perhaps for a few days a year. At any time between April and September, however, be sensible and use sun cream when exposed to the sun for any length of time.

Flood markers in Isleworth (Walk 18)

Although London’s reputation for rain is largely undeserved – it has less than Rome, Sydney or New York – it is true that drizzle, a fine curtain of rain which falls from leaden skies sometimes for hours on end, can come at any time of year. It poses no danger, other than to the spirit. But another marked result of climate change is the downpour. Short, intense periods of heavy rain, perhaps with thunderstorms, are increasingly common in the London area, again at any time of year. They can overwhelm drainage systems and rivers alike, and lead to flash flooding. They can affect London walking even if the rain has fallen many miles away, as the Thames carries flood waters to the sea – see the flood markers at Isleworth (Walk 18), for example.