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Essan
20 January 2020 11:42:48


I am actually intrigued to see if I can make this winter through without seeing a single snowflake, which would be a first. I thought it might happen last winter but we did eventually get some at the end of Jan and a few more times after that. 


Originally Posted by: Chunky Pea 



It's happened several times here in recent years ....

Had a couple entirely snowfree calendar years too


Andy
Evesham, Worcs, Albion - 35m asl
Weather & Earth Science News 

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job - DNA
Essan
20 January 2020 11:46:20


Re NS Robins' point that you don't get "snow upon snow" in March, even in 2018: well, we did here. The snow began falling overnight 28 Feb/1 March and the drifts were topped up for at least a couple of further days.


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 



We had 2 days of snow here - but it was all gone by the 4th March


Andy
Evesham, Worcs, Albion - 35m asl
Weather & Earth Science News 

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job - DNA
kmoorman
20 January 2020 12:45:00

I take it the models were rather uninspiring today, as all the chat has been about snowless winters?


Home: Durrington, Worthing, West Sussex. (16 ASL)
Work: Canary Wharf, London
Follow me on Twitter @kmoorman1968
overland
20 January 2020 12:45:50

 


To normal people, there's been nothing mild about this winter down here, away from the towns. No days of temps in the teens where you could let the fire go out, like last December. No need to mow the lawn. There was even a thin layer of seasonal ice on all the puddles on Christmas Day. The one defining memory so far is battling through the cold and the horizontal rain to vote on 12 December. A typical cold winter, in other words. Even while typing this I'm looking at a white wonderland of frost which will last all day in the shade.


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 


According to the always accurate lawn mowing scale, it's been chilly here. 


We live in one of the mildest parts of the country and in many previous winters I've had to cut the lawn in December or January, but it's barely grown since it was cut in early November. There has also been several days of ice on the cars in the morning which, as we are so close to the sea, is relatively rare. 
 
Also, as someone who can remember as far back as the 1978-79 winter, it's rare to get snow on snow and I spent the first 25 years of my life in rural Staffordshire.
 
However, one thing that has been disappointing in the past decade is that we have not had a proper fall of snow since Jan 2013 (which also happened to be a snow on snow event!) and the only other one in the last 10 years was December 2010. March 2013 and even 2018 failed to delivery here.
 
What I've really missed is looking out onto snow falling on a snowy landscape and there is currently not much sign of that happening.
Mumbles, Swansea. 80m asl
Russwirral
20 January 2020 16:28:44

Current GFS rolling out, Next Tuesday starting to look semi interesting with perhaps a little bit more oomph on this run than on past runs. The Jet being ever so much more amplified ie buckled....


 


dare i say it... mid next week might be wintry.... 

we shall see where this ends up... but could be a decent run.


Russwirral
20 January 2020 16:32:25

it goes on to die a death, but the shape is much healthier, and one could argue the best chart of our "winter" so far.


 


The harvest this year has been very poor


 


Netweather GFS Image


Northern Sky
20 January 2020 16:45:00

12z GFS actually an improvement. A decent NW'ly from the 28th which would bring a two day cold snap. Ok not great but I'd take it this Winter. Still a long way out and the inevitable GFS watering down of the 850's to 'look forward to'.

doctormog
20 January 2020 16:48:05


12z GFS actually an improvement. A decent NW'ly from the 28th which would bring a two day cold snap. Ok not great but I'd take it this Winter. Still a long way out and the inevitable GFS watering down of the 850's to 'look forward to'.


Originally Posted by: Northern Sky 


If your last statement proves to be correct, and based on this season it very well may do, I think serious questions need to be asked about the GFSv3.


fairweather
20 January 2020 19:13:33


 


It was 2 June 1975, not the 6th. And, as far as I know, it's the only time snow has ever falling in southern lowland England in June. There never were "the days" when snow used to fall in June. Only the one.


And, as an aside, it was the prelude to the most beautiful sunny endless summer you could ever imagine.


Re NS Robins' point that you don't get "snow upon snow" in March, even in 2018: well, we did here. The snow began falling overnight 28 Feb/1 March and the drifts were topped up for at least a couple of further days. And, best of all, when it finally dissipated by mid-month, there was another epic fall of several inches of snow on 19 March and we got out the sledges all over again.


And that's in the West Country, just 30 m above sea level. The key point, though, is that it's rural here. I get the feeling that much of the winter moaning and doom-mongering is a consequence of everyone living in towns and/or experiencing winter by the lines of the 850 temps on the GEFS diagrams, rather than going outside.


To normal people, there's been nothing mild about this winter down here, away from the towns. No days of temps in the teens where you could let the fire go out, like last December. No need to mow the lawn. There was even a thin layer of seasonal ice on all the puddles on Christmas Day. The one defining memory so far is battling through the cold and the horizontal rain to vote on 12 December. A typical cold winter, in other words. Even while typing this I'm looking at a white wonderland of frost which will last all day in the shade.


We've lived through an awesome decade for winter fans - Jan and Dec 2010 through to 1 Feb 2019. Record-breaking stuff. But if you spent it in towns, travelling by car from centrally heated home to centrally heated office, and passed the days there gloomily eyeing up the breakdown on GEFS, then too bad. You've had global warming instead.


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 


Sorry, but you must either be very young or living in some romantic cold dream world ! I will attenuate that by saying the West Country has faired marginally better than the traditional cold areas of the past like East Anglia or Scotland. We've had a handful of frosts but also many days above 10C, no max below 5C (hardly any below 7C)  and the CET at +3C doesn't lie! But having either personally experienced and followed closely 7 decades the last three have been easily the mildest and least snowy, and by a lot. I also spend a lot of my time outdoors and certainly know a bone chilling Easterly when I feel one. 2010 was the exception but that didn't come close here to '47, '63,' 79 or' 81. But for East Anglia it's not so much the lack of extremes but the lack of frequent snow showers off the North Sea. They were so frequent they wouldn't really even be worth mentioning then. A couple of cm of snow blowing around near the coast from Kent to Norfolk was ignored. Every now and then they would come 20 miles inland and could give bigger falls. I accept this is IMBY but it is a massive change.


Once again, as ever, I refer you to https://durhamweather.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/bonacina.html


Read the outstanding features on the right and look at the snow depths. We weren't talking 5-10cm then !


S.Essex, 42m ASL
fairweather
20 January 2020 19:16:53


12z GFS actually an improvement. A decent NW'ly from the 28th which would bring a two day cold snap. Ok not great but I'd take it this Winter. Still a long way out and the inevitable GFS watering down of the 850's to 'look forward to'.


Originally Posted by: Northern Sky 


Might squeeze a -6C 850 out of it for a day or so looking at the mean and spread.


S.Essex, 42m ASL
JACKO4EVER
20 January 2020 19:30:21


 


Might squeeze a -6C 850 out of it for a day or so looking at the mean and spread.


Originally Posted by: fairweather 


could conceivably be the highlight of winter. 

Perhaps some cool zonality on offer at best, pretty poor output again it has to be said 

Northern Sky
20 January 2020 21:34:02


 


If your last statement proves to be correct, and based on this season it very well may do, I think serious questions need to be asked about the GFSv3.


Originally Posted by: doctormog 


It almost always seems to be the case and it does make me wonder if it's such a predictable flaw why is it not addressed?


I don't know anywhere enough about this but at a guess you would've thought that such a flaw would have a cumulative effect on accuracy? 


 

some faraway beach
20 January 2020 23:08:44

There seems to be a problem that the more detailed a model becomes, the more accurate it is in the near term, but the likelier it is to go haywire in the longer term. We're all familiar with those  phantom day 10 ECM easterlies over the last couple of years, and the new GFS, in its attempt to be as detailed, may have gone the same way.


My guess (and it's purely an uninformed guess) is that Numerical Weather Predictions, which is what these models are, will always face a problem with making the grids smaller and the time-steps more numerous. Out to day 5, say, this is a good thing. But beyond that we're talking about an accumulation of tiny errors which become huge errors as they're carried forward from one calculation to the next. Even something as innocuous as a rounding 'error', such as calculating air pressure as 1020.5 mb and carrying that number forward to the next 3-hour interval, might produce northern blocking by day 10 if the real figure is 1020.54 bar, or zonality if the real figure is 1020.45 bar.


And the more of these tiny rounding errors you make as you increase resolution, the greater the scope for critical errors to accumulate later on.


I'd be interested to hear from anyone who does know about these things whether I'm barking up the wrong tree or not here. 


2 miles west of Taunton, 32 m asl, where "milder air moving in from the west" becomes SNOWMAGEDDON.
Well, two or three times a decade it does, anyway.
BJBlake
21 January 2020 00:36:41


 


It was 2 June 1975, not the 6th. And, as far as I know, it's the only time snow has ever falling in southern lowland England in June. There never were "the days" when snow used to fall in June. Only the one.


And, as an aside, it was the prelude to the most beautiful sunny endless summer you could ever imagine.


Re NS Robins' point that you don't get "snow upon snow" in March, even in 2018: well, we did here. The snow began falling overnight 28 Feb/1 March and the drifts were topped up for at least a couple of further days. And, best of all, when it finally dissipated by mid-month, there was another epic fall of several inches of snow on 19 March and we got out the sledges all over again.


And that's in the West Country, just 30 m above sea level. The key point, though, is that it's rural here. I get the feeling that much of the winter moaning and doom-mongering is a consequence of everyone living in towns and/or experiencing winter by the lines of the 850 temps on the GEFS diagrams, rather than going outside.


To normal people, there's been nothing mild about this winter down here, away from the towns. No days of temps in the teens where you could let the fire go out, like last December. No need to mow the lawn. There was even a thin layer of seasonal ice on all the puddles on Christmas Day. The one defining memory so far is battling through the cold and the horizontal rain to vote on 12 December. A typical cold winter, in other words. Even while typing this I'm looking at a white wonderland of frost which will last all day in the shade.


We've lived through an awesome decade for winter fans - Jan and Dec 2010 through to 1 Feb 2019. Record-breaking stuff. But if you spent it in towns, travelling by car from centrally heated home to centrally heated office, and passed the days there gloomily eyeing up the breakdown on GEFS, then too bad. You've had global warming instead.


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 


Thank you for the history correction, you may well be right, and this was exceptional it is true. The point was that late cold spells sufficient for snow like that in May (or June) are behind us, because there just is not enough cold air retained to be able to reach our latitudes to deliver snow. It was never common but it was regular in my childhood to see snow in April and falling even in early May. Look, stoats turned white in winter back in the 60s when I was  a boy, called ermine, and as Fairweather has said, us rural East Anglians would hardly count a snow flurry as anything of note. It is now. My dad learned to ice skate, never visiting s rink, but on ice on ponds. By the way, I have always lived in the country - hard not to in. east Anglia, although I lived in Ipswich for 4 years, 2001-2005, when incidentally I saw more snow than several years before or since. 


We will get snowy years again, especially if we get a negative NAO/ AO and an easterly QBO combining, but there can be no doubt that it is getting more difficult and less common and the cold lasts for shorter durations than in the days of my youth.  The planet was 0.6 degrees colder then, so it follows.


Brecklands, South Norfolk 28m ASL
DEW
  • DEW
  • Advanced Member
21 January 2020 06:57:17

Jetstream currently running N of the Uk, after a bit of indecision at the end of the week it fires up again across and to the S of the UK, notably strong around Wed 5th which ties in with the pulse of rain across France at that time http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec4


GFS shows current HP weakening by the weekend, then as yesterday an Atlantic flow bringing in cold NW (Tue 28th, Wed 5th, almost a proper northerly with the second of these ) or mild SW (Fri 31st ) according to whether LP or H{ is dominant. ECM agrees with minor tweaks on timing. Windy for most of the outlook after this week.


GEFS in the S 1-2C above normal to 27th after which up and down with plenty of variabilty; a wet period of 4-5 days starting then but becoming drier later. Scotland milder wrt norm at first but the variable runs after 27th dwell more on the downside, and the drier period later on doesn't really put in an appearance


War does not determine who is right, only who is left - Bertrand Russell

Chichester 12m asl
jhall
21 January 2020 10:17:34


There seems to be a problem that the more detailed a model becomes, the more accurate it is in the near term, but the likelier it is to go haywire in the longer term. We're all familiar with those  phantom day 10 ECM easterlies over the last couple of years, and the new GFS, in its attempt to be as detailed, may have gone the same way.


My guess (and it's purely an uninformed guess) is that Numerical Weather Predictions, which is what these models are, will always face a problem with making the grids smaller and the time-steps more numerous. Out to day 5, say, this is a good thing. But beyond that we're talking about an accumulation of tiny errors which become huge errors as they're carried forward from one calculation to the next. Even something as innocuous as a rounding 'error', such as calculating air pressure as 1020.5 mb and carrying that number forward to the next 3-hour interval, might produce northern blocking by day 10 if the real figure is 1020.54 bar, or zonality if the real figure is 1020.45 bar.


And the more of these tiny rounding errors you make as you increase resolution, the greater the scope for critical errors to accumulate later on.


I'd be interested to hear from anyone who does know about these things whether I'm barking up the wrong tree or not here. 


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 


I'm no expert, but I don't see why improving a model for the short term should make it less accurate in the long time. There might well come a point at maybe around 10 days out when the accumulation of random errors means it is no longer any better than it was before it was improved, but I don't see why it should actually be worse.


Cranleigh, Surrey
Russwirral
21 January 2020 10:52:44

Says alot about our winter when i look at a disntinctly zonal outlook (beyond this week) and see that as an upgrade to cold weather.

At least the mountains will see something seasonal.


fairweather
21 January 2020 11:03:22

Not looking great after the one to two day colder blips. Still we will increase our blip count to three for this winter. This could be my third consecutive winter with no snow lying.


S.Essex, 42m ASL
Gandalf The White
21 January 2020 11:32:04


There seems to be a problem that the more detailed a model becomes, the more accurate it is in the near term, but the likelier it is to go haywire in the longer term. We're all familiar with those  phantom day 10 ECM easterlies over the last couple of years, and the new GFS, in its attempt to be as detailed, may have gone the same way.


My guess (and it's purely an uninformed guess) is that Numerical Weather Predictions, which is what these models are, will always face a problem with making the grids smaller and the time-steps more numerous. Out to day 5, say, this is a good thing. But beyond that we're talking about an accumulation of tiny errors which become huge errors as they're carried forward from one calculation to the next. Even something as innocuous as a rounding 'error', such as calculating air pressure as 1020.5 mb and carrying that number forward to the next 3-hour interval, might produce northern blocking by day 10 if the real figure is 1020.54 bar, or zonality if the real figure is 1020.45 bar.


And the more of these tiny rounding errors you make as you increase resolution, the greater the scope for critical errors to accumulate later on.


I'd be interested to hear from anyone who does know about these things whether I'm barking up the wrong tree or not here. 


Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 


I think there are two main problems.  


As I've observed before, one is that the greater level of detail in the newest models means there are more datapoints to populate for the starting position and there simply aren't accurate readings for every one of them. This means the opening position still contains estimates/approximations.  They may be very good estimates but they're still estimates. That is why the ensemble suites are still critically important.


The other issue is that however good the models are, they are still only a mathematical representation of how a complex fluid sitting on a complex surface will behave. 


I don't know how many decimal places are used in the models but I'd be surprised if that was an issue and certainly not significant relative to these other two.


I don't see any logic for the programming giving better short-term results but worse longer term ones. That's not how the models are constructed: the same mathematical formulae are used throughout.


Location: South Cambridgeshire
130 metres ASL
52.0N 0.1E


nsrobins
21 January 2020 11:55:52
Not really that bothered but these ensemble plots are poor considering it’s mid winter. OK for elevation at times but pants for lowland UK.
Whether the rebounding COD will save the day or a warming remains to be seen but January is pretty much a bust again this year.
Neil
Fareham, Hampshire 28m ASL (near estuary)
Stormchaser, Member TORRO
nsrobins
21 January 2020 11:56:24

Not really that bothered but these ensemble plots are poor considering it’s mid winter. OK for elevation at times but pants for lowland UK.
Whether the rebounding COD will save the day or a warming remains to be seen but January is pretty much a bust again this year.


http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png


(probably not worth saying twice but a poor signal doesn’t help :))


 


 


Neil
Fareham, Hampshire 28m ASL (near estuary)
Stormchaser, Member TORRO
Northern Sky
21 January 2020 12:33:32

I actually quite like the look of the 06z GFS. No deep cold but chilly and lively, which is far preferable to dull and dry imo. 


Having said that today is beautiful. I love a clear high pressure but after today lots of cloud gets pulled in and it looks dull and mild. Incredibly boring weather unless you have to work outside.

Saint Snow
21 January 2020 12:54:36


I actually quite like the look of the 06z GFS. No deep cold but chilly and lively, which is far preferable to dull and dry imo. 


Having said that today is beautiful. I love a clear high pressure but after today lots of cloud gets pulled in and it looks dull and mild. Incredibly boring weather unless you have to work outside.


Originally Posted by: Northern Sky 


 


It's already been pulled in here. I actually like dull weather when it's cold, but dull and mild is just 


Anyway, the Manchester ENS show the end-of-Jan colder blip to be a couple of degrees cooler than London on the 850's (a mean of -6c as opposed to -4c).


Interesting to note that for both Manchester and London there is strong agreement between all members for the dip on the 29th/30th (on both, the difference between mildest & coldest is only 2c), yet the earlier and smaller dip on the 26th is far less certain, especially for London, which has a scatter of about 5c



Martin
Home: St Helens (26m asl) Work: Manchester (75m asl)
A TWO addict since 14/12/01
"How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics."
Aneurin Bevan
JACKO4EVER
21 January 2020 13:16:06
The promise of a blink and you’ll miss it colder blip at the end of the month which will more than likely flatten out anyway doesn’t really rock my boat. This decrepit winter is a bust, I’m looking forward to plume watch now and the first signs of spring warmth. Having said that the 06z GFS should deliver some snow to Scottish mountains for the ski industry, for how long it would hang around however is uncertain
Northern Sky
21 January 2020 17:04:31

The 12z GFS is actually better than the 06z. In the context of this Winter I'd take it with open arms. Plenty of PM shots and snow for northern areas with elevation and perhaps down to lover levels at times too. 


The ECM ens were horrific earlier so no doubt it will be along to burst this little bubble of hope shortly.

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