Image copyright Kingfisher
The wave of cold weather dubbed the Beast from the East took a big bite out of B&Q's sales in the three months to 30 April, its owner Kingfisher has said.
Like-for-like sales at the DIY chain tumbled 9% in the UK and Ireland.
The woe was not contained to the UK for Kingfisher, with sales at Kingfisher's French DIY chain Castorama also dropping 8%.
The falls led to an overall 4% decline in like-for-like sales for the quarter.
Chief executive Véronique Laury said: "It was a challenging start to the year with exceptionally harsh weather across Europe and weak UK consumer demand.
"This impacted footfall, especially sales of weather-related categories. February and March were particularly affected with sales improving over the course of April and into May."
Ms Laury said market conditions in the UK remained uncertain, as demonstrated by recent weak retail sales, while France was "encouraging, but volatile".
Despite the cold weather, sales at Screwfix still rose by 3.6% in the UK, although Kingfisher said sales would have been higher if they had not had to close some stores temporarily because of the weather.