Along with many others already said I'll add the notion that when the opp follows the control then its game on/over and we can all go home.

Most of us are aware that 6hrs later they'll have falllen out with each other and be going their separate ways again.

Indeed it was common to see references to ‘old fashioned winters’ in the mid-19th century. Not only that but I’ve found several references to ‘modern winters’, the earliest from 1849!

“On Thursday, the atmosphere became darkened, and during the night and yesterday, snow – a rarity in modern winters – fell in great abundance”

Birmingham Journal, 6th January 1849 https://ibb.co/hPjJqw

“Of late years, elderly and middle-aged people have looked upon modern winters with something like contempt, as altogether unworthy of the name when contrasted with those which made their rigours felt during the first quarter of the present century”

Exeter Flyer, 5th January 1854 https://ibb.co/heW6Aw 

“The weather during the past few weeks has been very wet, mild, and unseasonable.....It has been one of the modern winters with very little frost and snow, and no severe weather."

Taunton Courier, 21st January 1857 https://ibb.co/i6ydqw

This is the best article from the Glasgow Herald, 8th December 1879:

“Whatever be the reason we have sets of mild winters and sets of cold ones. At times so many mild seasons come together that people begin to speculate about “change of climate”, and to lament over the “degeneracy of modern winters,” only to be reminded soon by a year such as last that we are still in the neighbourhood of the arctic circle. It is more than likely therefore that before gliding into the next mild “cycle” we may have two or three winters of more than average intensity”.

https://ibb.co/demjxb

You just couldn't make it up!

Think of it this way: let's say that every dozen winters we'd expect to get a couple of memorable ones in the British Isles. That sounds fair enough - a couple around each solar minimum. Let's represent a memorable winter as rolling a six on a dice. So if you rolled the dice a dozen times, on average you'd get a couple of sixes, in the same way as on average you'd expect to get a couple of memorable winters every dozen years.

Now roll the dice 30 times. You only get a couple of sixes. Do you start to suspect that the dice is loaded? That someone has switched the dice? Of course not. The dice is still capable of coming up six: it's demonstrated that twice. There's no reason at all to believe that anything has changed.

So why all the drama about only 2009/10 and 2010/11 popping up in the last thirty years? It's no more justified than any of those those nineteenth-century statements quoted above.

Good post SFB,  and I will avoid the obvious gag that the person in the 30 year scenario must have been rolling "modern dice".

The thing is, the warming trend that that the MetO take into account when issuing seasonal forecasts has AFAIK been going on for an awful lot longer than merely the last three decades. Your contention is that there was supposedly some kind of step-change in the UK's winter climate circa 1987/88; the overall warming trend that the MetO take into consideration when issuing their forecasts goes back much further than the late 1980's.

Mea culpa for that, Michael. It was me who was (I think anyway) the first to mention the phrase in this thread. What have I done?!

Thanks Richard.

Has Ian Brown accepted that he didn't coin that term? That was a nonsense to begin with.

Unless he is claiming he is actually 170 years or so old?

I've noticed that Ian has recently changed his signature, so maybe, just maybe he has accepted this.

Go further back (early 1800s) and Luke Howard himself says severe winters are not the norm for the UK.

So why do we think today that severe winters were commonplace decades ago? You go back to the 1930s and they talk about the 1890s, go to the 1890s and they talk about the 1850s..........

For the purposes of the internet era etc.. I did invent the term - bear in mind I came up with it in 2003 and was not aware of these quotes that have been dug up. What has happened since 2003 has, largely, been an accelaration of the previous 15 years in terms of warmth.

The 19th century quotes are not really relevant because the periods being referred to often contained severe winters and people are talking about more average winters as the new 'norm'. There was nothing like the astonishing period of warmth that we have seen since the late eighties that have, generally, made even 'average' months a rarity.

As Kevin pointed out previously, there have been at least as many, if not more, records for warm months in this country set during spring, summer and autumn months in the past 30 years as have been set during winter months in that period. This includes the warmest autumn on record which encompassed the warmest September and October on record in 2006, not to mention the hottest month ever recorded in this country in July of that year. The warmth during that period has not been unique to winter months alone.

They are relevant because they show that winters with little snow are the norm and severe winters are the exception even during a colder era like the 19th Century. 

This quote is so relevant that, standard of English apart, it could easily have been written in 2011 not 1879:

"“Whatever be the reason we have sets of mild winters and sets of cold ones. At times so many mild seasons come together that people begin to speculate about “change of climate”, and to lament over the “degeneracy of modern winters,” only to be reminded soon by a year such as last that we are still in the neighbourhood of the arctic circle."

The winters in the second half of the 19th Century may have been colder and snowier on average than the last 30 years but those in the first four decades of the 20th Century were not. 

Here is another interesting article from the Bristol Mercury, 5th February 1879:

https://ibb.co/m9EGCb 

I think both 2009/10 and 2010/11 would fit into the category of severe winters which means the frequency for this century so far is close to the one in seven year event mentioned then.

Writing off the winter in early February is bad enough, but writing it off when the autumn has barely begun is another thing.

Balkans I said.

"Snow spreading from the west, turning to rain as it becomes milder"

The 3rd of the 4 stages of the UK snowy outlook

1. Expectation
2. Excitement
3. Disillusionment
4. Persecution of the forecasters

We used to get a a lot more of this type of weather when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Seems to be a rare occurrence these days. It's more often a short spell of snizzle followed by torrential rain!

The term "modern winter" isn't great because of lack of a timescale definition. The perception is also aged based and where you live. If you are 40 or under you won't really have noticed that much difference. If you are over sixty you will have noticed a massive difference from the previous 30 years, especially if you have lived in the South East and particularly coastal East Anglia. Often the minutia that contribute to the feeling of cold winters arent' recorded. There were very many "mild winters" that would have lots of individual days of insignificant heavy convective snow showers from the North Sea. Fronts from the west often brought short lived heavy snow that settled then rapidly turned to rain and was gone in hours. They don't show in the records but they don't happen so often now. Nevertheless with climatic averages taken over 30 year periods it is factually clear that the last 30 years have had less snowy winters then the previous.

“The ECM will be crucial tonight.”

No, actually, it won’t, and it probably won’t be tomorrow either.