Now that we have entered into yet another winter, this is a good time to start a new moaning thread for a brand new season. Whether you have something to rant or gloat about, this is the very place for that.

My only moan just now is that it isn't the least bit cold just now, although I am aware that there may well be some colder weather on the way according to the latest model output.

 

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You can tell that we're now into the winter because despite the Met Office forecasting a frost for here tonight, the temperatures are already refusing to drop (as is the case all too often at this time of the year) and haven't budged one single bit in the last three hours (at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh, the temperature has even gone up a bit during that time).

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Horrendous start to winter - just a continuiation of the vile autumn and worryingly similar to last winter.

A poisonous combination of miserable cold days and bleak frost free nights with almost no concept of normal diurnal variation. Never in my life can I recall getting to this stage of December without seeing one frosty morning 

Hasn't reached 6C during the day this month nor dropped below freezing at night. Couldn't even drop below freezing when there was snow on the ground which is the biggest joke yet and as a result it rapidly turned into a depressing slushy mess 

Not seen a dry day since the 23rd November and more endless crap ahead similar to last December.

Virtually sunless all week, apart from yesterday, but once again today proves that no matter how bad the weekdays are the weekend will always be worse. Not only is it miserably grey and sunless yet again but we have poor visibility, murk and 3C cold rain to endure. Utterly detestable and the bleakest winter weather to be found anywhere on the planet 

The last time Saturday managed more sun than cloud was way back on 18th September. Absolutely shocking run beyond comprehension and smashes my previous worst run of Saturdays out of the water in 15 years of records. That was 9-in a row dull horrors. We're now on 11 and it is so utterly desperate, despairing and downright disgusting I have given up hope of ever seeing anything remotely normal again.

Weekends since the end of July have produced barely 20% of the possible sunshine.  It's off the scale of horrific to be that much worse than the normal 35% which in itself is poor and barely tolerable 

We seem to be well and truly entrenched in the most unrelentingly dire run of bleak weather I have ever endured with seemingly no escape

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Horrendous start to winter - just a continuiation of the vile autumn and worryingly similar to last winter.

A poisonous combination of miserable cold days and bleak frost free nights with almost no concept of normal diurnal variation. Never in my life can I recall getting to this stage of December without seeing one frosty morning 

Hasn't reached 6C during the day this month nor dropped below freezing at night. Couldn't even drop below freezing when there was snow on the ground which is the biggest joke yet and as a result it rapidly turned into a depressing slushy mess 

Not seen a dry day since the 23rd November and more endless crap ahead similar to last December.

Virtually sunless all week, apart from yesterday, but once again today proves that no matter how bad the weekdays are the weekend will always be worse. Not only is it miserably grey and sunless yet again but we have poor visibility, murk and 3C cold rain to endure. Utterly detestable and the bleakest winter weather to be found anywhere on the planet 

The last time Saturday managed more sun than cloud was way back on 18th September. Absolutely shocking run beyond comprehension and smashes my previous worst run of Saturdays out of the water in 15 years of records. That was 9-in a row dull horrors. We're now on 11 and it is so utterly desperate, despairing and downright disgusting I have given up hope of ever seeing anything remotely normal again.

Weekends since the end of July have produced barely 20% of the possible sunshine.  It's off the scale of horrific to be that much worse than the normal 35% which in itself is poor and barely tolerable 

We seem to be well and truly entrenched in the most unrelentingly dire run of bleak weather I have ever endured with seemingly no escape

But hasn't Aberdeen already had snow?

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Yes, there is still some on the ground.

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My adventurous trip to Stockholm i thought I would share:

Would have loved to been in the Xmas markets with mulled wine and snow falling, carols singing but looks like this wasn't to be but hey ho! Always the next year but patience is running out after so many let downs. I got back from Stockholm day before the Xmas markets were on at Skansen and Gamla Stan on 21st only to find a day after on 22nd the snow had arrived and it was -2c and of course the Xmas markets opened up and Xmas lights came on! - I also see all of Sweden is snow covered now and daytime maxes are in Stockholm -10c. 

Typical we missed the snow and xmas markets oepening in Stockholm by one day.

If that wasn't enough there were issues with our passenger locator form at Schiphol flight and with huge queues we missed our flight. Thanks for the political situation the Dutch passport control at Schiphol didn't recognize my girlfriends ID card (Brexit since 2019 she had a citizen settlement status valid until 2025) and denied her entry back with me and questioned us how we met and so on (She is Romanian!) so this was what held us up so we had to go on GOV.ORG website before boarding to prove because we missed our flight we had to rebook/refill out a whole new passenger locator form with new documents filled out to yet again correspond./.match with our new flight boarding pass, NHS COVID-19 vaccination pass, QR code which was what kept us at check in and passport control before we boarded out flight. 

Furthermore when we did arrive Bristol airport late we found out our luggage never boarded our flight and was still in AMSTERDAM Schiphol!

We arrived a day late then had to pay an additional fee for car parking at airport. Also to add insult to injury we came back to a broken down boiler and no heating and all our warm clothes were mostly in our checked in luggage which never boarded our flight of course! Then having to do the PCR tests etc etc - So much stress and hassle when holidays are meant to be relaxing! At least KLM didn't charge us for new flights! We got our luggage back 3 days later and the luggage was dirty and my headphones were broken.

Stockholm is lovely city, which reminded me of Amsterdam - so clean and friendly people! Loved the ABBA museum, Vasa Museum, Ice Skating on Kungsträdgården and old town on Gamla Stan. All payment is contactless payment and electric cars and scooters too - but was so expensive. Shame nowhere accepted SEK in cash except the odd convenient store so we had to change all our money back to GBP (so felt screwed) as we could only use debit/credit which of course cost us using abroad. Weather was overcast and mild at 4-5c. Except the last day when it was +11c before really tumbling temps with snow the day after we left so yes you got it - no white birthday for me! Hope to return to Stockholm another time and visit more northern regions.

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ON ANOTHER TOPIC - BACK TO HOME RANT: 

Looking at the runs this morning - as I mention in the model output forum - it looks dire for those wanting a cold and snowy run up to Xmas. Very little frost either if any? Just overcast damp and dreary after this weekend - not too mild but never too cold and a bit of a borefest I guess!

Just very zonal although cold zonality until this weekend it doesn't look exciting - furthermore the AO is now exceptionally positive as is the NAO going positive as from the 1st day of winter of course it wouldn't wouldn't it!

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Dire here today. Classic 5C, cold, grey, wet and thoroughly depressing.

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Is there a more horrible weather than cold rain?

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Is there a more horrible weather than cold rain?

Yes. Cold driving rain. I'd much rather have raging mild zonality than that.

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Yes. Cold driving rain.

 

 

Fair point; agreed.

 

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Quite nippy across the Nordic & Baltic states today... imagine the chaos if it was that cold here!

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A very nasty day really. Blustery, and stuck at 3-4°C with on and off icy rain and sleet, wthough at least there has been some brightness at times. Interesting I've just had a hail shower this evening, as Pm air digs in behind this morning's front.

Say 2-3°C colder and this would have been a classic winter's day. A spell of snow this morning would have given way to sunshine and snow showers this afternoon.

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A kind of a moan… I would think that a majority on this forum would like to see festive snow, crisp blue skies, still airs and freezing temperatures like many countries at our latitude ( myself being one of them).

I am old enough to have been a child in the seventies (1-11 actually) and I can remember many winters leading up to the snowy period from 78 onwards as horrid.

I was born and brought up between Bakewell and Matlock in Derbyshire, a beautiful area surrounded by hills and fairly high up above sea level. The nearest coast was 76 miles away at Skegness. 
I didn’t realise it as the time but the area is perfect for snow, far enough away from the sea not to be effected by the sea temps yet when a NE or E wind blows any snow showers would move across Lincolnshire and unload on the Derbyshire hills. 
Atlantic depressions would give a good (albeit) temporary fall of snow when any cold break down happened.

I can remember my parents talking about how mild the winters had been over a Sunday lunch back in 76 or 77. My dad would then talk about the winters of 47 and 62/3.

I think there were 5 winters in that area without enough snow to sledge on. We live in hope that this winter will be different but from where I now live the dice are most definitely loaded against me.

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Another poor day. Driving rain, dull and temperatures stuck around 4-6°C. Coupled with the horribly short days, this must be the kind of weather that drives SAD sufferers berserk.

Roll on the winter solstice when daylight at least, finally starts to head in the right direction again.

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I know that we are approaching the winter solstice so although we haven't had all that much during this month so far, our sunshine totals during this month are running at around average at the moment. This month has started off on a wetter note than what we saw during November, but this is only because November was so exceptionally dry that it would have been our driest November on record had it not ended on a wet note with a very wet St. Andrew's Day.

In fact, our rainfall totals at the moment are only running at around average and if high pressure builds in the middle of the month in way that a lot of the model output is suggesting, we could well be in for yet another dry month here which would then give us a dry start to the winter.

In addition to that, we haven't had any really mild weather during this winter so far, but it also hasn't been all that cold either. Indeed, there has hardly been any concept of diurnal temperature range and as was the case during the autumn, there are still far too many occasions when the temperature at night in particular, just keeps on refusing to drop (that once again, is happening as I write).

Yes, we have had Storm Barra and the remnants of that are still sitting right on top of here as I write, but even that didn't exactly have a massive impact here. In in all, this all just adds to what is probably one of our most boring and uninteresting starts to any winter on record, with that following on from the very boring and uninteresting autumn which we had.

All in all, this is just yet one example of why Edinburgh just doesn't generally get "interesting" weather, especially in comparison with elsewhere in the UK.

 

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Is there a more horrible weather than cold rain?

No, because not only is it the most unpleasant to be out in you feel it is rubbing your nose it a la "Look at what you could have won"!  A couple of degrees colder and it would be wonderful

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No, because not only is it the most unpleasant to be out in you feel it is rubbing your nose it a la "Look at what you could have won"!  A couple of degrees colder and it would be wonderful

 

Yup. 

I was at a funeral yesterday and it was a burial. Cold, sleety rain relentlessly moving in from the North West. Absolutely freezing. I did think exactly "a few degrees colder and this would have been interesting"

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For now - I would take anything but wet and windy weather as we have had plenty enough of it now and winter is only 10 days old. It would be nice to see something quieter and drier with some cold, frosty crisp and bright mornings for a change, however snow would be a bonus of course! We are all fed up of rain TBH and I don't know about anyone else but I could do with a good nights sleep and a break from hearing the howling wind and hail/rain at nights.

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Anyone notice how the UK is the only country that appears to miss out on this potential potent cold spell and the cold is just to our east yet again and then goes to SE to plunge SE Europe including Greece and Turkey into the Freezer? If the charts verify of course? I find this frustrating don;'t you ? and it's a reoccurring theme over the past few years!?

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Yay. Three weeks of Autumn gone, two months and one week to go until we get our "Winter Week".