No snow in north Northumberland, virtually no precipitation whatsoever. A nice bit of sun shining through the window but one step outside and that perishing westerly wind still blows relentlessly, so not as much as a smidgen of frost here either. And the outlook is for more and more strong west winds, some mild, some colder but after 2 months I still see no end in site, though the Beeb late nighter hinted at a northeaster and an anticyclone - believe it when I see it!

The latest stats for Edinburgh Gogarbank show us just how dire, this so-called winter has been.

The average temperature at Edinburgh Gogarbank as at 10am this morning, was running at around 2.4°C above the 1981-2010 January average during this month and around 2.1°C above the 1981-2010 winter average for that station during this winter.

The worst part of that is the number of official air frosts which not only continues to be extremely dire, but which is actually even worse than what we had during December, just when it had looked as though this wouldn't even be possible.

So far with just another two days left of this month after today, there has only been a measly 2 official air frosts at Edinburgh Gogarbank during the whole of this month as at 10am this morning. That is only a really miserable 17.4% of the 1981-2010 January average for that particular station with even the likes of April 2019 producing twice as many air frosts as that.

In addition to that, there has only been 5 official air frosts during this winter so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank as at 10am this morning, which is only 14.5% of the 1981-2010 winter average for that station with just over a month left of this so-called "winter".

Rainfall is coming out slightly below average at both Edinburgh Gogarbank and the botanic gardens in Edinburgh both for this month, and for this winter as a whole, although this month hasn't been anywhere near as dry as the same month during last year with this winter, also being nowhere near as dry as the winter of 2018/19.

Finally and although the last couple of days has brought a bit more in the way of welcome sunshine, this is unlikely to be enough to prevent this month from going down as being duller than average overall at Edinburgh Gogarbank where we have only had about 68.1% of the January 1981-2010 average number of hours of sunshine during this month so far, with just two days left of this month after today.

In fact, I don't even think that there are enough daylight hours left in this month to bring this month's total up to the 1981-2010 average even if the rest of this month is completely sunny, so this month will go down as being duller than average overall there, regardless of what happens there during the rest of this month.

Since December was also slightly duller than average overall at Edinburgh Gogarbank, this means that February will need to be an exceptionally sunny month if this winter isn't to end up going down as being duller than average overall at Edinburgh Gogarbank.

With there also been so little in the way of snow around, all of that together paints a very sad and sorry tale of how this so-called "winter" has panned out.

 

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What is the point moaning? I am all out of moans. This has been just a typical fail of a UK winter - the writing was on the wall in December and it hasn't failed to disappoint accordingly.

 

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What is the point moaning? I am all out of moans. This has been just a typical fail of a UK winter - the writing was on the wall in December and it hasn't failed to disappoint accordingly.

 

 

The point of this thread is to stop the more 'analytical' threads from getting clogged up with IMBY / moaning posts.  At least that's my take on it.

 I see the most recent GEFS has gone to tulipagain.

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The point of this thread is to stop the more 'analytical' threads from getting clogged up with IMBY / moaning posts.  At least that's my take on it.

 

 

 

I've never seen the need for a specific moaning thread, apart from to give Aberdeen Richard a platform.

IMO there should just be a seasonal 'chat' thread to talk about the weather - prospects, moans, praises, memories, etc

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Looks pretty certain now that this will be the latest start to Winter here since I started weather recording back in 1982 (that's assuming if wintry weather actually arrives at all now !!)  The current record here for the first flakes of snow in any Winter is February 2, 2012, but this is almost certain to be beaten now.    Ironically, February 2012 went on to be one of the snowiest Februaries this century so far here!

Astonishing how many snowless (or close to snowless) Decembers and Januaries there have been over the last decade.

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Looking at the local stats, this month is on course to be drier, sunnier and milder than average (surprise surprise). I honestly don’t mind mild winter weather as long as it isn’t raining all the time.

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I'm sure I remember winters worse than this, from the late 80's onwards.

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The point of this thread is to stop the more 'analytical' threads from getting clogged up with IMBY / moaning posts.  At least that's my take on it.

 I see the most recent GEFS has gone to tulipagain.

Agreed - this thread is for what people would have liked to happen or hope to come, plus reminiscences - the Model Output is for what the charts and other statistics actually show. I know it doesn't always work like that, but in principle ...and this thread does have a subtitle about gloating rather than moaning.

Moaning is always going to have the upper hand as there are a dozen ways we can be disappointed compared to the one ideal situation.

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If there is no further wintriness this winter , here it is the second worse winter since at least 90. It has been relentlessly boring too. I could kind of live with no snow in 13/14 after the excellent spell Jan- Mar 13.

2013/14 - No lying snow. A few days with flakes falling
2019/20 - 0.5cm slushy snow in December.

Last year we were lucky here that we managed a few cm from showers that clipped the extreme NW of Leeds, then stuck around for a few days, but large parts of the local area were snowless. Been a tough couple of years.

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This morning's model output is awful for 'coldies'.   Plenty to moan about.  

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I'm sure I remember winters worse than this, from the late 80's onwards.

Statistically you could well be right but I would classify this winter as the most boring I can recall. In fact we could well be living through one of the 10 most boring UK winters of the last 1000 years. 

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The winter of 88/89 had around 24 hours of -5s over London (at 850), with an absolute low of -7C or so. So far this winter we're at 12 hours (with an absolute low of -5C), with little sign of anything to come in this morning's runs. The ~36 hours of -5s that GEFS had been showing for this week came to naught.

Therefore, it reminds me very much of that winter - which killed my childhood ideas of seeing snow every winter!

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This morning's model output is awful for 'coldies'.   Plenty to moan about.  

Another day another dire outlook for cold and snow!

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I've never seen the need for a specific moaning thread, apart from to give Aberdeen Richard a platform.

IMO there should just be a seasonal 'chat' thread to talk about the weather - prospects, moans, praises, memories, etc

Perhaps we need a "Moaning about people moaning" thread. 

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Statistically you could well be right but I would classify this winter as the most boring I can recall. In fact we could well be living through one of the 10 most boring UK winters of the last 1000 years. 

1000 years, eh? THe medieval warm period must havwe been even more desperate for coldies....

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Statistically you could well be right but I would classify this winter as the most boring I can recall. In fact we could well be living through one of the 10 most boring UK winters of the last 1000 years. 

My goodness Brian you are much older than I'd guessed from your avatar. In fact, older than Methuselah

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1000 years, eh? THe medieval warm period must havwe been even more desperate for coldies....

I'm not talking cold. I'm looking at the overall "boringness" of this season. Big rain and storms or perpetual fog are all interesting. The constant murk and mildness with a few brighter interludes is the worst possible. 

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I'm sure I remember winters worse than this, from the late 80's onwards.

Probably not. I can't find one, certainly not in the South. It's all relative. A considered mild snowless winter in the late 80's was very different. A fair bit of snow 1985-1987. 86-87 - 18" Southend, 25ft drifts in S.E. I mean come on, when was the last time there was a 25ft drift anywhere?  It was generally considered poor from 1988-1995. Yet even in those you will find things like 6" snow, Dover, 7" Tadworth.  92-93 was poor but 4", East Anglia, 8" Aberdeen, 12" Northern England with 30ft drifts ! and so on - and that's just the poor years.

We are currently in a long run of poor winters but the biggest difference is the lack of really deep falls (2012-13 excepted ) and more especially drifting. You can see below that there were spurious falls in "little snow" winters of 10" or more. In the recent winters they are measured in cms not inches to get to 10!

https://durhamweather.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/bonacina.html

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What is the point moaning? I am all out of moans. This has been just a typical fail of a UK winter - the writing was on the wall in December and it hasn't failed to disappoint accordingly.

 

Absolutely MM, this rancid shyte infested fetid rat turd of a winter isn’t worth even mentioning any more. It’s a bust, I’m sure we are saving all of our winter Synoptics for April and May. 
the only interest it has held for me has been in Eastern Europe and Russia where some parts have been an astonishing 10C warmer than average.