WEDNESDAY night’s temperature of -17.7C at RAF Benson was one of the coldest ever recorded at the weather station, and meant the south Oxfordshire village was colder than the daytime temperature in Russia’s capital Moscow.

The freezing overnight lows at Benson – similar to the temperature of a domestic freezer – ranked it alongside some of the coldest cities in the world.

The measurement at RAF Benson’s weather station trumped a temperature recorded on January 7 last year of -11.8C, which was the coldest since 1982, when temperatures fell to -18.7C.

And on Tuesday, January 28, 1947 — temperatures in south Oxfordshire dipped to -18.3C – the coldest night since 1917.