I've posted some stats about winter 2020-21 in Berkhamsted and compared it to the last couple. Full discussion is here:

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/weather-news/5654/winter-2020-21-summary

Bottom line is that here (and I've noted in the article that things were different further north and in parts of the south east) the winter was quite nondescript IMO. 

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An accurate summary and little different to local conditions here.
One ice day and one notable snowfall

Good summary Brian.

It was a cold and snowy winter here. Plenty of westerly Irish Sea convective snow. 

Several separate snow events, most of them from the west, but they didn’t tend to last too long or cause any disruption.

Storm Christoph was one of the most interesting weather events I’ve ever experienced and was the highlight of the winter for me. 

All in all, a decently seasonal, traditional, old school winter.

If the easterly had also delivered meaningful snow I’d rate it as a classic. 

 

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Bland and Boring 

Nice to see more frost and fog, then normal. Can not remember a  Winter with not one weather event of note,even the standard zonal borefest Winters have one notable day.

They say Eskimos have many ways to describe snow, this winter has made me invent a few for cold rain 😉

 

2017/18 was a way better one with 2 excellent snowfalls in early Dec and late Feb/early March - in the view of this Berkhamsted resident.
Average temps I suspect will be similar to that one though
8th year in a row without a proper cold and snowy winter here

2017/18 was a way better one with 2 excellent snowfalls in early Dec and late Feb/early March - in the view of this Berkhamsted resident.
Average temps I suspect will be similar to that one though
8th year in a row without a proper cold and snowy winter here

I've checked and added in temperatures for 2017-18.  It was actually significantly colder with a mean of 3.87C as opposed to 4.53C in 2020-21. Rainfall totals were almost identical. Completely agree that 2017-18 was way more interesting around here.

 

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In a generally unexciting often rather cool winter I think easily the most noteworthy thing for me would be the lowest UK February temperature for 66 years being recorded.

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Close but no cigar winter here missed out narrowly on two snow events in January once to far west then to far east. The February easterly was ok here best snow for 3 years but it was much better further east. Frustrating sums it up.

 

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I would give it 7/10 overall but I tend to mark the season rather than a specific three month period so March could raise or lower it slightly.

There have been some good snowfall events ( 6 over 2.5cm, 3 over 10cm) and some very cold temperatures, frustrations too but always lots of interest in the charts, to pass the time.

Cumulative snowfall is 54.5cm, above average but less than 17/18 , 21 days with over half the lawn covered, again very good.

Interestingly nearly all snowfalls have come from the NE/E or with an Easterly undercut.

The highlights for me were the deep snowfalls on the 8th and 15th January where on each occasion the snow fell all day, causing significant distruption and effectively cutting the area off, followed by amazing (almost) ice days where there was no thaw. The 8th was staggering in how lucky I was compared to other areas of Leeds being just far enough North for the deep stuff. Even on a walk 1.5miles SW of here there was significantly less.

The mid winter easterly was a bit of a disapointment, given max depth of 3.5cm but it did stick around for a while at least on the grass.

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Winter this year was one glorious week in February. During that week the powder snow swirled, icicles glistened and the chill wind howled. It was a reminder of how things used to be and a sign that after 24 long years we can indeed still get midwinter easterlies.

It was preceded by two and a bit months of extended autumn, with silly levels of rain, and followed by an immediate switch to spring.

Nonetheless, that one week means it's been the best winter for ages here... it knocked 2010 into a cocked hat, that's for sure!

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A very decent winter from a cold and snow perspective up my way. Snow in all three of the winter months, snow falling on Christmas Day and the coldest temperature recorded since February 2012. I'd probably say it was the best winter since 2010-11 in that sense.

The highlights for me this season will be the week between Christmas and New Year, and Storm Christoph on 20 January. The week between Christmas and New Year seen several days of cold sunshine and snow showers, with snow also falling as the clocks chimed in 2021. Storm Christoph was then pretty remarkable, with two days of torrential rain, before it turned to the heaviest snow for some time in the evening.

I've put together a playlist of some of my videos and time-lapses of cold weather events this winter:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbH-0YtVVF2bDDhtOgCDCiHWCXicEBNmz

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The most notable things about this winter is that we have done fairly well for snow and we did even manage to experience minus double figures temperatures on one occasion, for only the first time since December 2010 at Edinburgh Gogarbank (although that latter feat wasn't actually achieved across all three of my local stations as the temperature at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh failed to reach that threshold). Whilst those individual weather events do play a part in determining what this winter has turned out, it is on how everything averages out over the winter as a whole, that this winter will be judged, rather than on those individual events.

Brian correctly stated that the winter panned out differently further north than how it did where he was, and even very carefully managed to avoid falling into the trap of saying that this was the case in every single aspect. I know that Brian has probably far too much experience in his field to allow himself to fall into such a trap, but a large part of that will no doubt come down to the fact the he at least managed to get an ice day where he was (albeit, just the one over the whole winter) whereas up here in Edinburgh, we didn't even manage to get one single ice day during the entire winter which is something which will continue to lose this winter a number of marks in my opinion.

Of course, any winter has to be colder than average overall, to have a chance of even getting pass marks in my books. As it stands, the temperature at Edinburgh Gogarbank looks set to end up being slightly below average, so this winter has just managed to squeeze through by the skin of its teeth in that regard. However, this has been a winter where January will go down as its only colder than average month. December was a milder than average month here and despite the very cold start to this month, February is now looking set to also go down as being slightly milder than average.

This means that two out of the three winter months will go down as being milder than average which is enough for it to lose marks as a result. This is a month which would probably have been substantially colder than average here, had it all not gone so horribly wrong during the second half of this month which has just been one massive frost-free horror show with not even a single ground frost being recorded during that time, let alone an air frost.

The number of air frosts was very poor during December and after a decent first half of this month, the number of air frosts during this month has also fallen well below the 1981-2010 February average for here, with January being the only month during this winter to have registered an above average number of air frosts. This means that over the winter as a whole, the number of air frosts in this part of the world is actually slightly below average.

Even that is better than recent winters in that regard, but this winter will still go down as a failure in that regard as the number of air frosts has to be above average for this winter to get pass marks for that. Adding all of that together, this has been a winter which has been a lot better than other recent winters, but is also a winter which doesn't deserve to get anything better than pass marks for those reasons which I have mentioned, so I am only going to give it a score of 5/10.

 

 

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I'd agree with Retron's description of an extended autumn for this South Coast location, only more so. We didn't have the benefit of his week of snow (there was just a brief covering one morning) and although there were a few more overnight frosts than in recent winters, there was no ice day. Fewer stormy periods than usual, and while there has been a fair amount of rain, it's been possible to get out for a walk in the dry on all but a handful of occasions.

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Manchester Winter Indices

1978-79: 262

2009-10: 197

1981-82: 149

1976-77: 141

1984-85: 140

1995-96: 135

1990-91: 126

2020-21: 120

2010-11: 119

2008-09: 105

2012-13: 102

1986-87: 100

It has been a pretty good winter, if you are going to be realistic around here. Just above 2010-11, it was a snowier winter than 2010-11. There was not a lot of falling snow days during the winter of 2010-11 and after the first week of January 2011, it was snowless.

Although December 2010 was an amazing month to have lived through, I prefer this type of winter with the main winter occurring during the core of the winter rather than virtually disappeared after the New Year.

Weather event was Storm Christoph. Very mild to snow in a few hours.



Early hours of 28th December 2020, with the frontal system pivotting over my area giving about 4 hours of snow, the cover lasting until 9th January



Topped up by the New Year's Eve, snow showers off the Irish Sea

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Given below, are the final winter statistics for Edinburgh, Gogarbank from all of the data which I have available which are:

Temperature (°C):

Lowest Min: -12.6 (on 11/2/21)
Highest Min: 9.4 (on 18/12/20)
Mean Min: 1.3
Min. Anomaly: +0.1

Lowest Max: 0.9 (on 10/2/21)
Highest Max: 13.9 (on 18/12/20)
Mean Max: 6.1
Max. Anomaly: -0.6

Ave. Temp.: 3.7
Temp. Anomaly: -0.3

Number of Frosts

Ground Frosts 45
Air Frosts: 32 (92.2% of LTA)
Ice Days: 0

Snow Depths (cm)

Highest Snow Depth 12.0 (on 10/2/21)
Days With Lying Snow 27

Rainfall (mm):

Total for Winter 284.0 (146.6% of LTA)
Wettest Day: 37.6 (on 4/12/20)
Rain Days: 45 (124.0% of LTA)
Dry Days: 12

Month With Lowest Rainfall Amount February 2021: 65.6 (121.9% of LTA)
Month With Highest Rainfall Amount December 2020: 124.8 (196.2% of LTA)

Month With Fewest Rain Days February 2021: 9 (91.8% of LTA)
Month With Most Rain Days December 2020: 19 (147.3% of LTA)

Wind Speed (mph)

Lowest Mean Wind Speed 2.5 (on 6/12/20)
Average Mean Wind Speed 8.6 (89.1% of LTA)
Highest Mean Wind Speed 19.9 (on 26/12/20)
Highest Wind Gust 55.2 on (23/2/21)

Pressure (mb)

Lowest Pressure 965.3 (on 27/12/20)
Average Pressure 1006.4
Highest Pressure 1038.8 (on 27/2/21)

Sunshine Totals (hrs):

Total For Winter 152.8 (101.6% of LTA)
Sunniest Day: 8.1 (on 11/2/21)
Sunless Days: 38

Dullest Month December 2020: 29.5 (83.6% of LTA)
Sunniest Month February 2021: 70.5 (101.3% of LTA)

LTA = 1981-2010 Winter Average

Conclusion:

Overall, the winter was slightly colder than average and substantially wetter than average, but it ended on a very dry and mild note, and was also slightly sunnier than average overall.

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We had numerous incidents of snow falling - in terms of 'number of days where snow fell' it was easily top 10 in my lifetime (now 49 years )

Yet it was rarely heavy with most falls not sticking. And, apart from the snow that fell in the early hours of 28th December, any that did stick was gone within 24 hours.

That 28th December fall was the deepest at around 2cm (and it stayed on the ground, increasingly as ice, for a few days).

We never had any persistent cold - best was a few days of temps down to around -3c/-4c.

All very pitiful, really. 

What makes it seem worse is that there'd been a lot of synoptics that were close to being good - indeed, some MO had shown a few exciting scenarios not that far away, which then dissipated into less extreme weather by the time T-0 arrived. And, of course, some parts of the UK had a proper snowy bonanza.

To cap it all, both my White Xmas bets (Aberdeen & Norwich) which seemed bankers 3 or 4 days before Xmas, went belly-up.

 

For MBY, I'll give it 3/10

 

 

 

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For me it was a generous 5/10. More for how it felt a little more traditional. Fog and Frost aplenty. But the lack of snow was a massive disappointment, despite the excellent Synoptics.

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I will often think of severity of winter in terms of the intensity and duration of cold /snowy weather that may have occurred during it rather than whether it is strictly above or below average temp.
Example : winters 2011/12, 2000/01 and 1993/94 - all mild /average overall but all delivered some decent cold and snowy spells so I rate them well on this scale, remembering as I do this weather and forgetting the mild dross which cancelled it all out.
On the other hand 2005/06, 1996/97 and 1991/92 - I am reliably informed they were all on the cool side yet I remember only a small smattering of snow falling and certainly no disruptive falls so these are largely forgotten now

Very poor winter locally . Just a few miles away the perception was probably somewhat better as the snow was measurable for a few days. Even that doesn't really make it of any note. It was incredibly wet, boring and grey till February when it dried out a bit. Very little in the way of blue skies hence hardly any frosts. Pretty much like most of the winters since 2013 except a bit colder on average.

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Another diabolical horrendous winter full of dire synpotics. Devoid of northerlies with the added misery of being far wetter and duller than recent write-off winters.

Just one decent week of weather from the 7th to 13th February which brought the only proper snowfall since 2013 with a depth of 14cm. 

The rest was unrelentingly poor - a toxic mix of cold rain and mild rain with occasional useless snowfalls that were barely measurable.

Wettest winter I have recorded and 2nd wettest season in 16 years, after Autumn 2009, with a ridiculous 323.2mm of precipiation. December was in the top 5 wettest in the past 100 years. 

Rainfall duration was the highest of any season I have recorded at 290.7 hours.

Far fewer frosts than a winter with the equivalent mean temperature would have produced in the past. December produced a horrific 22 consecutive air frost free nights - the second longest winter spell in my 16 years of records. Just having this on its own would make a winter terrible but this horror show had to go one step further with the grotesque second half of February stringing together a 14-day air frost free sequence.

January was the absolute pits and unprecedented. It was the coldest January since 1984 but I cannot find a single instance of a similarly cold January producing so little snowfall. 1978, 1985 and 1986 were all poor cold Januaries but not a patch on this disaster. Just endless cold rain and ice. February was far snowier, despite being 2C warmer, and even December, which was 2.6C warmer, produced a greater depth. It was unbelievably bad.

Lack of sunshine was grim at times with December producing 0.4 hours in 8 days to give the second dullest week I have recorded in 14 years after the completely sunless first week of January 2016. As if that wasn't bad enough more easterly filth brought the dullest February week in my record.

February looked as though it was going to end up as one of the dullest on record but the run of sunshine right at the end turned it into only a modestly dull month. 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2017 were all duller. It was the dullest winter overall since 2013/14 but not that dull mainly due to January being surprisingly sunny at times despite the cold and wet.

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