All a bit too-little, too-late really.

I'll welcome snow any time, but March snow is so frustrating. 

Even in 2013, we got around 12cm lying snow one weekend evening. Following day, the temp maxed at 1c, there was cloud cover (albeit a feint sun could be seen behind it)... and we had meltage. 🤢

I like my cold spells to be long, especially if there's snow on the ground (why Jan 10 was so good; we had lying snow for 3-4 weeks)

Upgrade so easily to near clean -10C uppers with 1 mild strangler remain now and few -11Cs.  Serious cold going to hit there since 1950.  Very bad that London failed to get to -10C or below this winter which if was here we should be looking at clean -15C to -20c uppers.

Me too. It wasn’t that unusual then, and that was proper model watching times...with no worries about an easterly having enough cold air.  And it was needless too, as the world could have acted 20 years ago, and we’d net zero by now already. The bosses at Exon etc should be tried for a crime against humanity, and every other species on the planet. 

All but impossible here, I can't remember the last time there was a covering of snow on the ground after the very beginning of March. 2013 just saw brief slushy partial dustings, not complete coverings, and April 2008 was a complete miss, with just cold rain. It really is very, very hard to get sufficient cold to allow a covering this close to the coast (½ mile inland).

Before any potential mid-March fun, though, it looks like an extended period of zonality to get through first, with potential gales. This morning's GFS is typical of the output - deep lows to the NW, secondaries zipping across the UK, especially in the south, buckets of rain, especially in the west. The precipitation totals for the next 10 days are quite something! The ground here is finally drying out (thanks to the easterly we've had, and will have for another couple of days, the low dewpoint air is very handy for this), but it won't be long before grassy areas turn back to a muddy quagmire.

Here's the 0z GFS totals for the next 10 days.

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/19/10694/240_777UKrqt8.GIF 

GFS Op - this week to Tue 25th  LP off NW Scotland dominating British weather, with S/SW-ly winds, gales esp Fri & Sun, unsettled and cool in the N, milder with relatively HP in the S. The far E of Europe has LP to start with, filling as HP settles near the Black Sea. FRom Tue 25th the weather develops zonality with troughs and ridges moving E-wards across Britain and on the the continent, one such trough Thu 27th reaching well S and bringing in some wintry air, 

ECM like GFS, but starts the zonal flow a day earlier

GEFS mildest around Tue 21st, back to norm or a bit below Tue 28th, less agreement after that but more likely mild. Rain from Tue 21st becoming heavy over the following week in the S and W.

The snow we had at the end of Feb/start of March 2018 was about as much as I can remember occuring in a single snow event in my lifetime, and that includes the snowfalls I remember as a kid in the 1980s. Yes, it was aided big time by the massive SSW that took place not long beforehand, but SSW or not it still took place. Having said all that, neither the freezes of Dec 2009/Jan 2010 nor late Nov & Dec 2010 were a result of a SSW, and that was after years of mostly mild winters during which some on this forum questioned whether we would ever see a long-lasting spell of severe cold in this country ever again.

IMHO, perhaps what you say in your last couple of sentences would be best discussed in UIA?

Disappointing how the outlook is looking much more unsettled. A few days ago it was looking like high pressure was going to have more influence. Local field and paths have been a little less muddy and flooded in recent weeks than they might be this time of year but just as the sun's potential drying power increases, it looks like we're back to wind and rain again. 

Impressive 850s for sure but Meto automated shows daytime temperatures of about 8c in Nicosia for a few days which isn't really what we would call cold.

It is perfectly possible that one winter we will still get a severe and snowy winter but those who thought we would never get another one like the real gems of the past are on even firmer ground 15 years down the line from 2010.

We got 2 or 3 dustings of a cm or so.

Was surprised the Apple app show 8C which is very high for near -10C uppers, expecting around 4-5C as for a 8C the uppers usually at -5C.  It amazing the 06z still solid with it and not a shift of downgrade at all.  Why can't we do the same in here?  I notice the prolonged milder uppers for here are downgrading a bit with some cuts on it.  Let see when the day come how cold the max will be there.  For 8C here is nothing but 8C there is really bitterly cold as if here is -2C max.  Houses there are a nightmare and badly insulated so we wore jackets all the time inside even with heating on.

I get that, but there is IMO a difference between someone saying that such a winter is very unlikely to happen again in the future and another saying that such a winter can never happen again under any circumstances. The former stance is IMO the more realistic one to adopt as it always leaves the door open to a degree of doubt, even if it is a fairly small one.

I can well remember around 20 years ago, both before I joined TWO and then after I joined in 2006, that on this forum there were a number of people who believed that severe winters, or even severe spells lasting a few weeks or so, couldn't happen again in this country. At that time I had started to think that perhaps they had a point after a run of mild/very mild winters for several years up to then. Winter 2009/10 and December 2010 both showed that they can still happen even if the chances are reduced compared to times long past, and even though we are 15 years on from 2010 I still don't believe that anyone can say for sure that severe winters or even long lasting severe spells are definitely consigned to the history books anymore than was the case prior to 2010. 2017/18 was I believe colder than average if not a severe winter in general terms, and although not technically a winter month, there was the unusually cold March of 2013 as well which was only a year after one of the warmest Marchs on record in this country.

This climate of ours really does test our patience a lot of the time.

"March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers" - nothing unusual about gales this time of year, really!

(And FWIW down here, I'd say autumn finished in early January, as we had 2 weeks of cold weather with just a brief mild and windy blip, then it's been generally coldish until now. Spring starts later this week as the warmth returns).

Talking of gales, the GFS has been ramping up Sunday's winds through the day - starting in the 50s with the 0z, going up to high 50s in the 6z, and now reaching a delightful 62mph with the 12z. Honours are split so far this autumn-winter season so far, with MetO and GFS both being right 3 times each in terms of their initial wind forecast strengths. The MetO raw couldn't be more different than GFS, with a gentle SSW'ly breeze, gusting to 12mph... just 50mph lower than GFS has at the same time!

GFS Op - dominated by Atlantic LP in three phases (1) LP off W Ireland now bringing SW-lies (esp strong Sun 23rd) and mild conditions  until Tue 25th (2) this LP moves to the Norwegian Sea and sets ups a zonal flow, W-lies with troughs and ridges crossing Britain to Sat 1st (3) more direct effect on Britain as LP crosses Scotland 980mb and affects the rest of Britain Sun 2nd  before a very deep LP S of Iceland 945mb brings in some rather cold air with secondaries in its circulation moving rapidly across England.

ECM - similar to GFS but more of a S-ly flow at first

GEFS - very mild for this week after a cold start in the N, back to norm for a few days from Tue 25th before ens agreement breaks up but most runs not far from norm. Rain from Fri 21st onwards through to Thu 6th, very heavy at times in the W, not as much but continuous in the SE, sporadic in the NE with the heaviest on the 21st, 24th, and then later on

Seems to be stuck on 12th Feb? - anyone else experienced this?

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/extended-zonal-mean-zonal-wind?area=nh&base_time=202502120000 

Yes, that was my take after a quick glance at the ensemble suite.  A bit Goldilocks-like: not especially mild, not especially cold.

Pretty much the tend since the start of Autumn. Prolonged Warm spells followed by less prolonged cool spells and with little in the way of daily variation. 

Opposite down here, we have had short stormy periods followed by long cool dull spells

Yes one thing it hasn't been since the new yeqr is mild . Suppressed temperatures  long dreary spells with the odd clear dqy  short wet spells in Jan .   Most memorable for the sheer dreary blandness this winter as a whole 

I wanted to say thank you to Quantum for his fortitude and persistence with flagging the last cold spell with possibilities, when all the rest of us had hung up the towel and given it up for dead. This post and all the other around it on page 29, should be retained for educational purposes, because they have given me significantly more insight into snow potential than I had before and this bravery and “fluid” explanations proved right, and I have picked out just one post of many around it that determinably retained the possibility of snow fall, when our rather cold episode at Day time maximums of 5-6 degrees, looked to deliver only cold rain and dull gloom. 

On Saturday, a front came up from the south, entirely unforecast by the BBC or anyone else, as far as I could ascertain - and dumped a heavy (albeit wet and drippy) snow fall on Norfolk and Suffolk that lasted 4 hours, of increasingly heavy and fluffy snow, which eventually settled and deposited 1.5 cm on my lawn, which was still there the following day - a bit thinner by then, at just 28m ASL. My hat is off to you sir....

Its the first snow I have seen here for 3 years.