EMISSIONS from Didcot Power Station cause snowfalls in the local area, according to an article in a scientific journal.

University of Reading meteorologist Dr Curtis Wood, 27, said this week that he believed particles contained in emissions from the town’s cooling towers caused freezing fog to solidify into snow flurries around the plant.

RWE npower admitted that the power station did have an effect on local weather conditions.

And one local councillor said it is something people who have lived near the plant have known for years.

The new study, which appears in the Royal Meteorological Society journal Weather, included data from winter 2006, showing that snow fell around the power station when the rest of the county stayed foggy, but dry.

Dr Wood said: “What normally happens with freezing fog is a process called ‘super-cooling’, where even though it is below freezing temperature, it remains liquid.

“To cause snow, you need some sort of particle in the air.

“Around power stations, it seems pretty probable that industrial effluent acts as that catalyst.

“There were no weather fronts or clouds and they occurred in a local area of a few hundred metres, and within a mile of probable sources such as power plants. It is thought impossible for atmospheric ice to form near to freezing point if the air is pristine.”

Slightly warmer conditions had caused snow to fall as needles instead of flakes, he added.

Town councillor John Flood, who lives a mile from the plant, said: “I remember one year when our little bit of Didcot was a white world. It was like hawfrost on everything. It’s very, very rare, but I think it’s something most of us who live near the power station have known for years.

“With the plumes of steam out the top, we’ve got the biggest weather vane in the country and our very own microclimate.”

RWE npower spokeswoman Claire Loveday said the 40-year-old power station did cause some localised weather conditions, including fogs, but operators had not noticed any effect on snowfall.

The company said it was not aware of a problem across the power generating industry, although Dr Wood’s research also found similar phenomena at a power station in Hereford.

Dr Wood said a health risk from the snowfalls seemed unlikely.