Bemoaning the 'death of the mid-winter easterly' is reasonable given it's been 20 or so years since anything that amounts to one, let alone a major outbreak, but to announce the death of northerlies/north-easterlies in Scotland is surely pre-mature at best.... 2009/10 was the 2nd coldest winter in Scotland for 100 years (all 3 months having averages below 1c) and then there was December 2010 (the coldest month ever in believe for much of Scotland), and both  from weather heralding from a northerly quadrant.... OK, they're 5 and 6 years ago now (scary to think!), but it can't be compared with the lack of deep cold easterlies.  

Feb 86 made a big impression on me as well. My grandpa died during that month and for reasons I didn't understand (and still don't!) the hearse left from our house. It got stuck in the snow and my dad had to go out with the undertaker and shovel snow away from a few hundred feet of road in order for the hearse to be able to leave. Sheppey was, of course, in an ideal position to benefit in terms of snow - it was a snowy month here as the easterlies coming over the sea sparked shower after shower.

March 2013 was simply too little, too late - there was one slushy dusting for a couple of hours and that was it.

It becomes extremely hard to get ice days and a cover of snow here, even with a continental easterly flow, before December and after mid-February. The last time it happened was November 1993 and before that, February 1986.

You're spot on Joe. It is Aberdeen's Union Street, probably taken in 1908 (coincidentally what Richard would call our last really snowy spell 😉 )

The building with the columns is the Music Hall. 

For the record, this is the setup, that brought the snow 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1908/Rrea00119081228.gif 

Now that is one impressive easterly!

haha! Knew I wasn't going mad.

I even went on to Mosley Street on Google street view to count the number of columns and the buildings are very very similar! 

I genuinely don't think Manchester has ever seen snow like that. 

Yes definitely Joe and definitely from 1908. The archives from the Silver City Vault have a few more with different views of nearby locations.

Funny that people mention March 2013 as that's a rare example of a good easterly around here.. no perishing temperatures due to the cloud, but 2 ice days in March and several snowfalls is a pretty impressive feat considering any snow that falls at that time of the year is supposed to melt before 11am (apparently).

Thanks for resurrecting this thread Darren. Fascinating.

Do we not count late Nov/early Dec 2010 as a proper easterly? Living in Edinburgh at the time that was sure as hell a proper easterly http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2010/Rrea00120101201.gif 

Blizzards, drifting snow, icicles, the lot. 

Much less severe in Kent? 

Edit - I've dug out some old photos. 

Ditto here, though on occasion a front coming up against an easterly can bring heavy snow and even blizzards. I recall one blizzardy night either Feb 06 or Feb 07 here under such a set up. All too brief though.

Certainly would count in my book for these parts. 40cm of snow followed by a bitter December with -15c minima over the snowfields at night.

I'd normally agree with you, but on a couple of occasions in 2013 (most notably 22/23 March), we had an easterly that delivered around 10cm of level snow plus deeper drifts. Ok, not the sort of ScH-derived easterly that I think Darren is talking about - but his favoured easterlies tend to deliver nothing to most of the country away from the SE/E/S England anyway.

The cold air in that chart posted by J Blogs originated in the Arctic and 'returned' back over the Ireland and the UK after passing down through Scandinavia. This type of air mass was classed as a 'P1' type (Arctic maritime) air mass (or at least it was as not sure if this system is still in use) by Belasco. True polar continental air masses ('A' types) originate much further east in the darker interior of the Eurasian landmass.

The source of the cold air on that outbreak was from Siberia and Northern Europe.

What really is rare though is a snow bearing Easterly that reaches further than a few showers on the East coast.

Lovely photos there!

Yes, 2010 for 95% of the UK was a fantastic reminder of how things used to be. Down here though (as I've bemoaned before) it was bitterly disappointing - no icicles, no powder snow, no sublimation of said snow. Indeed, there was a dump of slushy squishy snow, a hard frost, then two days after the dump of snow it pee'd down with rain and thawed the lot. And that was it, aside from a token amount of slush just before Christmas.

It reminded me in a way of late Feb 2005 (the last true easterly here) - the potential was there was for a bucketload of snow but the injection of milder air into the mix just tipped the scales too much. Of course in a warming climate generally these "marginal" cases will tip ever more towards the slush/sleet side of things... the world is a warmer place than it was in the 80s and 90s, for better or for worse.

What I've taken from this is the gradual warming that's taken place during my 37 years on this planet has tipped the scales away from snow down here. It can still happen, but (for example) a degree of warming makes all the difference if you were already on the borderline... -1C and powder snow becomes 0C and slushy snow, 0C and slushy snow becomes 1C and rain. Further inland there seems to be a bigger margin of safety, -3C becomes -2C and it makes no difference to things - other than to give marginally more snow as the moisture content of the air goes up.

I know easterlies (the proper sort, with air sourced east of the Urals and -2 or -3C by day) don't deliver very much to much of the UK, but down here they really are the holy grail. It's the reason I've never wanted to move away from Kent, as I know the day I do the following winter will bring snow to rival the 70s, 80s and 90s! That said, in a few decades I will retire "up north", somewhere that sees snow on a regular basis. In the meantime, I'll make do with whatever scraps I can get hold of!

Incidentally the laws of physics haven't changed; get -15C at 850 on a windward coast and it'll be a snowfest. Let that cold air pool inland and then introduce a stalling front from the south and you get a dump of snow - it's just exceptionally rare for that sort of breakdown to happen, let alone the rarity of getting the cold pooling here in the first place!

As Justin's post mentioned, if by chance we do roll three sixes and get another powder snow spell... by gum, I'll be making the absolute most of it (even to the point of taking days off work to enjoy it if I can). I would urge everyone to do the same if they can.

To highlight the inland bit 2010 was fantastic here as we stayed just on the right side of marginal and although there were a few drippy periods as the mildest air rolled through it was never enough to turn the snow to rain and it refroze shortly afterwards. We had several falls of snow and around 30cm or so depths. My photos are on an old PC and not this one sadly so can't post.

Make sure you do your research (I'm sure you will!) before moving. I spent my first 18 years in York and would rate it no better than the Chilterns for snow, possibly worse. I also lived in Sunderland for 6 years and that was utterly dire for snow, although it is on the coast. 

TBH I'm surprised people keep talking about December 2010. The period from mid December 2009 to mid January 2010 was far better here with three heavy falls of snow.

Yes, I'm not sure why people would be discussing the coldest December for at least 100 years. 

Really ? Did Jan 87, Feb 91, Jan 96 and New Years Eve 96 not deliver decent snowfall ? They did here.

What you need in Worcs is a block to the North and systems running into the cold air, that's a great set-up for the South Midlands, sadly of course like other wintry synoptics, increasingly rare.

Thought this analysis of the NAO- winters might be of interest to this thread.By definition NAO -winters have positive pressure  anomalies ie northern blocking which is usually accompanied by an easterly flow rather than a northerly one.So I have set out below the pattern of  NAO. winters.If we take the NAO as proxy for the CET,and NAO- as proxy for cold winters(correlation 0.66 ) and look at each decade since 1900 and count the number of NAO - Winters we get this;

1900-1909  2  A  run of 13 consecutive NAO+ winters from 1903 to 1916.

1910 -1919 1  The long bitter winter of 1916/17

1920-1929  1 The cold frosty winter of 1928/29.11 consecutive NAO + winters from 1918-1928.

1930-1939  1 1936.In the 40 years  from 1900 to 1939 there were only 5 NAO -winters.Model watchers like us would have committed mass suicide!

1940-1949  4 Includes the bitter January of 1940 and the infamous Feb 47.

1950-1959  4 Includes 1951,55,56,59,with Feb 56 being particularly cold and snowy.

1960-1969  6 The mighty 1963 was the coldest lasting nearly 3 full months.Feb 69 was had a cold and snowy Februaryr.

1970-1979  5 Includes the great Febrary blizzard of 78 and the snowy Jan and Feb of 79.

1980-1989  4 Includes the bitter December 81,the snowy January of 85 and the cold dry frosty 1986.

1990-1999  2 1991  not included the Snowy spell was just 2 weeks.Included 1996 and 1997 with cold Decembers.Note that there were 9 consecutive  NAO + winter from 1987-1995.

2000-2009  4 includes 2001,2004,2006 and the cold and snowy winter of 2008/9.

2010-2016  2  2011 included because of the record breaking Dec 2010.Other is 2011/12.

So I cant answer the why question for this pattern but just hope we see a few more NAO - winters in this decade.

Really good thread Darren.
As you know I live just across the water so experience much the same weather as you do. Yes for here in general only something from the East delivers. Only real exception was a few years back where we had snow from a front moving in from the west against a cold block over us which was unusual at our sea level elevation.

May be a bit older than you and as a child sometimes we cherry pick memories. From my take in the 60's we had a guaranteed two week period of bitter weather and it was a case of not if, but when it would snow. My road had annual football matches on the ice against another road, and every year during that period. It was so cold every year, the fens in Norfolk had ice skating festivals on the dykes there. They mirrored what the Dutch did on their frozen waterways, but at the time these were annual events.

Around the early seventies, I remember either Jack Scott or Bert Ford commentating in November about high pressure over Scandi on the Atlantic chart, and saying it would probably stay there now until around April. Since then, the feature has become very unreliable, usually unable to take a strong hold because of that jet.

As well as your observations, the high pressure belt to the south has become more of a feature for some reason. This has reduced the potential for low pressure to form over the Med, another important ingredient and feature in your snow graphics. Again perhaps because of changes to temperature as you mentioned causing a stronger jet, jet ribbons affecting lower latitudes have altered pressure patterns here, so the "problem" is not reserved to activity coming off the States.

With the suggested displacements of pressure and affect on our neck of the woods, seems in recent years our loss has been others gain for e.g. areas like Greece who seem to receive bursts of very cold air from the north which normally by passes us.