Given we have seen an active Hurricane season, We saw rapid build up of snow cover in Siberia, We are in an Easterly QBO and at solar minimum as well as experiencing a La Nina I would be keen to know what's stopping us from having prolonged proper cold weather!? Is it the lack of Tripol in Atlantic!? Notice that yet again the cold filters down into North America yet for a La Nina year - they usually provide milder than average weather for the USA!?

If February is forecasted to be zonal and mild then our only chance is January really!? - Certainly there is no prolonged cold or sustained cold for the rest of December and any colder snaps would be brief.

Soon to start a 'Winter is over' thread or am I being too pessimistic?

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Weather warning out for rain and snow tomorrow! Hurrah! Oh - but what's this? The area affected stops at the M4, AGAIN! Has someone installed heaters in the road surface to stop any cold weather reaching the south coast?

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I really hope something can be pulled out of the hat in the next month before another winter wafts by, but as interesting as ‘around average with the odd Pm shot’ is, there is very little now to suggest the sort of synoptics that would give me a shot at seeing snow falling.
As much as I respect the excitement of those who have already had snow this year, and as much as I understand the potential of pM or arctic air masses, for the far south it really has to be an easterly which are as rare as hens teeth these days.

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I really hope something can be pulled out of the hat in the next month before another winter wafts by, but as interesting as ‘around average with the odd Pm shot’ is, there is very little now to suggest the sort of synoptics that would give me a shot at seeing snow falling.
As much as I respect the excitement of those who have already had snow this year, and as much as I understand the potential of pM or arctic air masses, for the far south it really has to be an easterly which are as rare as hens teeth these days.

Winter 1962/63 didn’t start until....

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Absolutely miserable, revolting and depressing Christmas. Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were vile and the worst I can remember since the late 90s. I think it was either 1997 or 1999.

9 days since the last frost so this is turning out to be another appalling winter 

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Winter 1962/63 didn’t start until....

That’s a new one .... 😉😂

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Weather warning out for rain and snow tomorrow! Hurrah! Oh - but what's this? The area affected stops at the M4, AGAIN! Has someone installed heaters in the road surface to stop any cold weather reaching the south coast?

 

Trust me, it's a worse feeling when you're north of the snow band. On one map, I see snow forecast to be lying to the north, east and south of me.

And I'm stuck in the middle...

 

I'm hoping for a repeat of boxing day 2014 when a surprise shift from rain to snow delivered a belated festive fall of around 4-5cms. 

 

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Winter 1962/63 didn’t start until....

Dec 31 in the south. I remember being on a night northbound coach and seeing the first snow swirling around the roundabout where the M! started back then, the precursor to 3 major blizzards in the south, on the way to a perfect skiing holiday in Scotland where (I think) the snow had been lying for a while.

 

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Winter 1962/63 didn’t start until....

Wasn't the 1947 one a "late developer"? 1963 was icy cold for weeks on end but apparently wasn't as snowy (mostly frozen laying snow with drifts being recycled).

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Wasn't the 1947 one a "late developer"? 1963 was icy cold for weeks on end but apparently wasn't as snowy (mostly frozen laying snow with drifts being recycled).

62/63 “started” on Boxing Day. 1947 was a bit later starting.

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This Christmas holiday season is just a horrific showcase of all the rank garbage that has been the staple of winter over the past four years.

First we had the ridiculous mild muck with double digits overnight then we had the sickening and disgusting cold rain now we have the vile useless cold windy crap 

The pitiful, inadequate excrement we have at the moment is unrecognisable as anything an northerly would have produced in the past. Where the hell is all the cold and snow? Nowhere to be seen. The little precipitation there is dies out almost as soon as it hits land and the temperature isn't even dropping blow freezing because of the toxic wind

What an absolute pile of ****. Even last winters pathetic festive offering was better than this. If this is what a northerly is going to bring then it's time to give up completely. It seems that the whole region north east of a line from Inverness to Stonehaven now has the same climate as the extreme north east corner between Fraserburgh and Peterhead. The wind just never lets up and we can't get decent cold or snow anymore. Fraserburgh only recorded six air frosts during the entirety of 1971 and the way things are going it can only be a matter of time before it's as bad as that here.

After this  repugnant let down there looks to be nothing on the way but worthless zonal windy rubbish delivering thoroughly unpleasant and uninteresting, frost-less, snow-less nothingness. If I was retired I'd be booking a Caribbean Cruise to get away from this. I hate what winter has become, over the past four years, with every bone in my body and get absolutely nothing out of it anymore. It's an endlessly awful season now 

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Is there a "NO Snow" thread -   if there is can I join

 

No settling snow here so far this Winter, despite my location being in Cumbria and "modest" altitude you would have thought I would have received something, but no, missed out on everything

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Is there a "NO Snow" thread -   if there is can I join

 

No settling snow here so far this Winter, despite my location being in Cumbria and "modest" altitude you would have thought I would have received something, but no, missed out on everything

It's been shocking. I've noticed how you guys have missed even the paltry offerings we have had here in the NE.

There have been several years recently where the N Pennines/Cumbria has failed to have anything like the snow it once did. I say "once did", but even 7 or 8 years ago 2 feet of snow laying across the landscape was not unusual.

What's happened?

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Haven’t you just had 10 or so days of lying snow earlier this month? 

Anyway, your rants are entertaining. 

This Christmas holiday season is just a horrific showcase of all the rank garbage that has been the staple of winter over the past four years.

First we had the ridiculous mild muck with double digits overnight then we had the sickening and disgusting cold rain now we have the vile useless cold windy crap 

The pitiful, inadequate excrement we have at the moment is unrecognisable as anything an northerly would have produced in the past. Where the hell is all the cold and snow? Nowhere to be seen. The little precipitation there is dies out almost as soon as it hits land and the temperature isn't even dropping blow freezing because of the toxic wind

What an absolute pile of ****. Even last winters pathetic festive offering was better than this. If this is what a northerly is going to bring then it's time to give up completely. It seems that the whole region north east of a line from Inverness to Stonehaven now has the same climate as the extreme north east corner between Fraserburgh and Peterhead. The wind just never lets up and we can't get decent cold or snow anymore. Fraserburgh only recorded six air frosts during the entirety of 1971 and the way things are going it can only be a matter of time before it's as bad as that here.

After this  repugnant let down there looks to be nothing on the way but worthless zonal windy rubbish delivering thoroughly unpleasant and uninteresting, frost-less, snow-less nothingness. If I was retired I'd be booking a Caribbean Cruise to get away from this. I hate what winter has become, over the past four years, with every bone in my body and get absolutely nothing out of it anymore. It's an endlessly awful season now 

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Good grief, it's bad enough having rain; but to see a 'Winter wonderland' scene posted on the Beeb, supposedly from the Basingstoke area of all places, well that's a real kick in the balls.

I saw  this fantastic image online of deep snow on the Solent south cast..

Shame this is from a by gone era but at least shows that proper snow was once possible down here.

 

 

It's been shocking. I've noticed how you guys have missed even the paltry offerings we have had here in the NE.

There have been several years recently where the N Pennines/Cumbria has failed to have anything like the snow it once did. I say "once did", but even 7 or 8 years ago 2 feet of snow laying across the landscape was not unusual.

What's happened?

Yes, it really has been that bad in Cumbria, the irony is that we normally do well on spells of cold north westerly winds which essentially is where this months cold weather has come from but due to shear bad luck its been either slightly too warm to snow or when its cold enough far to dry!

Andy

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Is there a "NO Snow" thread -   if there is can I join

 

No settling snow here so far this Winter, despite my location being in Cumbria and "modest" altitude you would have thought I would have received something, but no, missed out on everything

Feel for you Paul. We have our first slight cover here from Christmas Night/Boxing Day....all frozen hard. Snow level on the Cumbrian Fells looks like 300m?

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It's funny how some winters or snow seasons fall into a habit of repeating events. This winter so far seems to be turning into the winter of the slider. Let's see how many times this happens this winter regardless whether snow falls or not.

 

Some of the GFS runs recently have been southerly tracking lows galore.

 

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What an absolutely dire embarrassment this winter is turning into. It's even worse than the last few as far as I'm concerned. The synoptics in those winters were dreadful so there was no expectation of ever getting anything decent.

This winter we have synoptics that should be delivering but they are failing abysmally. This supposed northerly is a joke unworthy of the name. It is awful. Temperature not even dropping below freezing 

Here is a comparison with a northerly of 16th/17th December 2005 to show what we should be getting. 

This was nothing but a bog standard unexceptional northerly 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/archive/2005/noaa/NOAA_1_2005121618_1.png

Then the temperature started mild but soon dropped off sharply. Overnight the temperature was below freezing when dry and above freezing when snowing. The day max was then the same as recorded during this spell but it then dropped to -2C during the second night before milder air moved in on the 18th.

Compare that to the current temperatures which are practically stuck on 1C for 36 hours and it shows just how hopeless and woeful our essentially non-existent weather has become

Link to the comparison graph:

https://ibb.co/k4AFcG 

 

 

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