The Met Office has revealed your suspicions were not wrong – last night really was the coldest night of the winter so far.
Scotland’s Dalwhinnie reached a beyond-freezing -14C, beating the previous record for this winter, the -12.5C felt at Altnaharra recorded on 3 December last year.
The Met Office has also issued an Amber warning for snow for the north of Scotland today, while the Environment Agency has released a flood warning for England.
The UK is no stranger to harsh winters. In 1947, snowdrifts up to seven metres in depth emerged as snow fell every day somewhere across the UK for 55 consecutive days.
But it was 1963 which was the coldest winter for more than 200 years. It broke all kinds of records as temperatures plunged to below -22.2C.
When it comes to the coldest one-off temperatures, however, the UK has dropped to much lower than that – proving that the weather can be even harsher than it was last night.
One day in January 1982, East Scotland felt a record bleak -27.2C – the same temperature felt in North Scotland in December 1995.
The next closest temperature was felt in the Midlands in December 1981, when it dropped to -25.2C.
Although those lows still seem a long way off, it looks like temperatures will be “quickly plummeting” again tonight.
The Met Office has warned of “a severe frost developing inland with icy patches” and “further snow flurries in northern coastal areas at times” – with the weather due to turn mild during the weekend.
But, the chill does not appear to have dampened too many people’s spirits on X (formerly Twitter). The social media platform lit up with photos of iconic landscape complemented by the snow.