The reality is that lowland snow in Britain is vanishingly rare. It was almost always a marginal event with the difficulty of getting air cold enough in place and then looking for enough moisture. Nowadays the warming atmosphere and reduced ice extent make getting lowland snow exceedingly difficult. The northern arm of the jet and the Azores High often conspire to destroy any potential for real wintriness. I’m looking forwards to spring. I did enjoy the crisp cold of the past week but it’s back to wild and mild now. Which I find depressing as we tolerated 3 months of it up to this cold spell. 

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The reality is that lowland snow in Britain is vanishingly rare. It was almost always a marginal event with the difficulty of getting air cold enough in place and then looking for enough moisture. Nowadays the warming atmosphere and reduced ice extent make getting lowland snow exceedingly difficult. The northern arm of the jet and the Azores High often conspire to destroy any potential for real wintriness. I’m looking forwards to spring. I did enjoy the crisp cold of the past week but it’s back to wild and mild now. Which I find depressing as we tolerated 3 months of it up to this cold spell. 

I had a dream the other day, of what life would be like should in my old age (mid 60s, which is as far as I'm expecting to go, as my family dies young). The evening before I'd been comparing 61-90 and 91-20 stats for Faversham, my closest official station. Winter days are now 1.5C warmer and summer ones are now 2C warmer.

My dream was set in twenty years, a world where temperatures had risen another degree and a half in winter, and another 2 degrees in summer... with temperatures in the high 30s in summer now being commonplace, and even an air frost in winter being a rare thing. Double figure temperatures throughout the winter months were common, snow almost unknown locally... and there were ferocious winter storms, with severe gales on a regular basis, winds strong enough to rip the felt off my roof...  and at that point I woke up with a sore eye!

 

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We are halfway  there Darren. If we do get some snow then I think I will make a snowball and freeze it for posterity. Like a museum piece. “ Here is the Dodo” hunted to extinction and devoured by rats. Move along to the next glass case. “Here we have a rare surviving specimen of an English lowland snowball. Once commonplace up to the earlier twentieth century, then increasingly rare until finally extinct by the 2030’s thanks to man’s desire to fly around to now disappeared islands and to drive big dirty cars.”

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This winter is rapidly turning into a complete debacle IMO. Unlike the south coast crew we do see lying snow here in most winters, but all we've had so far was a few granules from the short-lived easterly. Things could change quickly, but at the moment winter 2023-24 is on course to join the epic fails.

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The reality is that lowland snow in Britain is vanishingly rare. 

In the past 15 winters, I'd say I've had snow lying on over 25 occasions - with 6 of those lying at least 10cm deep.

I wouldn't call that 'vanishingly rare'.

And I live very much in a lowland area.

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This winter is rapidly turning into a complete debacle IMO. Unlike the south coast crew we do see lying snow here in most winters, but all we've had so far was a few granules from the short-lived easterly. Things could change quickly, but at the moment winter 2023-24 is on course to join the epic fails.

Here in NW Edinburgh, we've had virtually nothing in the way of lying snow all winter and even those higher and more inland parts of the south of Edinburgh have seen very little in the way of lying snow during this winter (as Jerry has already pointed out on various other threads).

Looking at the latest model output as well, it's hard to say where any further snowfall is going to come from because I've just watched the Met Office's latest week ahead video and there is absolutely nothing from a cold perspective, showing up for the next week at least.

Instead of that, we have high pressure to our south which we need to get rid of very quickly if we are to have any chance of getting any cold weather here and of course, this also raises the question of where on Earth was that high pressure during last summer when we were actually looking for it to deliver some decent weather in these parts?😡

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In the past 15 winters, I'd say I've had snow lying on over 25 occasions - with 6 of those lying at least 10cm deep.

I wouldn't call that 'vanishingly rare'.

And I live very much in a lowland area.

yes that’s an absolute load of rubbish (with all due respect to WI). I’m at only 85m asl and have seen plenty of snow over the past decade. Every single winter has produced a couple of snowfalls minimum*, some have produced several (2020/21 being a good recent example of a snowy but not particularly cold winter). 

Maybe along the south coast it has indeed become vanishingly rare but everywhere else (including lowland southern England away from the coast) it still snows every winter. 

*only exception being 2013/14 where we had no settling snow at all.

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yes that’s a load of rubbish. I’m at only 85m

You guys up north will eventually share the pain of us Kent folks, but it might take another 10 or 20 years to get that far! 😀

For fun, here's a summary of the snow events down here in the past 15 years, with the peak depth each time - I didn't keep detailed records before that, so although I can tell you for example in Feb 1986 there was snow on the ground every day of the month, I can't tell you exactly how deep and how many snowfall events there were.

2009-10: 1cm Dec, 12cm Jan
2010-11: 17cm Nov into early Dec, 9cm mid Dec
2011-12: 3cm Feb
2012-13: 8cm Dec, brief, partial dustings in Jan (x2), Feb (x1) and Mar (x1)
2013-14: Nothing
2014-15: Nothing
2015-16: Nothing
2016-17: A brief partial dusting on one day in Jan
2017-18: 15cm Feb into March - Beast from the East
2018-19: Nothing
2019-20: Nothing
2020-21: 13cm Feb
2021-22: Nothing
2022-23: A brief partial dusting on one day in Dec
2023-24: Three brief (5 min max) partial dustings on one day in Jan

As you can see - pretty miserable, really. There's only been measurable snow on the ground twice in the last 10 years, and one of those was the result of record-breaking cold conditions for the time of year - not exactly common!

The productive period from 2009-2013 seems a million miles away now, we have to make do with brief dustings these days - of the "wait 10 minutes and its all melted" variety!

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You guys up north will eventually share the pain of us Kent folks, but it might take another 10 or 20 years to get that far! 😀

For fun, here's a summary of the snow events down here in the past 15 years, with the peak depth each time - I didn't keep detailed records before that, so although I can tell you for example in Feb 1986 there was snow on the ground every day of the month, I can't tell you exactly how deep and how many snowfall events there were.

2009-10: 1cm Dec, 12cm Jan
2010-11: 17cm Nov into early Dec, 9cm mid Dec
2011-12: 3cm Feb
2012-13: 8cm Dec, brief, partial dustings in Jan (x2), Feb (x1) and Mar (x1)
2013-14: Nothing
2014-15: Nothing
2015-16: Nothing
2016-17: A brief partial dusting on one day in Jan
2017-18: 15cm Feb into March - Beast from the East
2018-19: Nothing
2019-20: Nothing
2020-21: 13cm Feb
2021-22: Nothing
2022-23: A brief partial dusting on one day in Dec
2023-24: Three brief (5 min max) partial dustings on one day in Jan

As you can see - pretty miserable, really. There's only been measurable snow on the ground twice in the last 10 years, and one of those was the result of record-breaking cold conditions for the time of year - not exactly common!

The productive period from 2009-2013 seems a million miles away now, we have to make do with brief dustings these days - of the "wait 10 minutes and its all melted" variety!

Seems to be famine or feast for you!!

Majority of my lying snow events have been in the 1-2cm range. I whinge about them at the time, but they are pretty regular!!

 

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Seems to be famine or feast for you!!
Majority of my lying snow events have been in the 1-2cm range. I whinge about them at the time, but they are pretty regular!!
 

It used to be more feast than famine back in the 80s and 90s, but since then definitely more famine. The dollops were bigger back then, too, 18cm or more wasn't unusual. In 1987 it was around 50cm of level snow, with 10ft drifts, but that was rather exceptional!

That's an interesting point you raise, mind you. Is it better to have large dollops of snow, but with nothing at all for years on end between, or regular but small bits of snow? I think I'd prefer the latter, although it could be argued that it's all the more special when one of those dollops happens.
 

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The winter game is nearly up for the south. It could be argued that's been the case for places like Hampshire, West Sussex to Dorset for a number of years. Devon and Cornwall still get lucky in deep PM or AM airmasses on occasion.

Since 2013 Kent and East Sussex has increasingly joined the aforementioned counties.
The 'window' has reduced now to little more than 8 weeks.

Last week was a disaster for us. A direct Arctic northerly from the pole could barely manage -9c at 850 briefly by the time it reached here at its peak. Despite being January it couldn't sustain itself and 48 hours later it had mixed out up to -5c 850. We got a shot at a NE'ly but by that stage it was too warm, the showers that fell were rain.

Global Warming is out of control. Winter will be gone from the Midlands in 10 years, Northern England 20 years and Scotland 30 years. The new season called extended autumn is coming for you all. Enjoy what you have now would be my advice.

 

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I hadn’t realized the midlands and the north were so climatically different from the far south these days. Enjoy your proper winters while you still have them. 

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I hadn’t realized the midlands and the north were so climatically different from the far south these days. Enjoy your proper winters while you still have them. 

Oh we certainly don't have proper winters - nowhere in this country does! We still get less than 10 days of lying snow a year on average.

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I think coastal areas are more marginal than inland. It has always been the case but now with AGW - more so. 

There will still be cold and snow but the “room for manoeuvre” will be smaller. It’ll still snow whether uppers are -12C or -9C, but when a historical -7C upper air temp setup is now -5C, we’re bound to have more rain & sleet upsets. 

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a major newsworthy cold outbreak in future years, where the margins are very safe e.g. beast from the east. Look at what’s happened in Scandinavia this year. 

Margins are tight in this country anyway when it comes to snow. An already marginal setup will become even more so. 

It is depressing, but I don’t think snow and cold
are completely gone for good. Not yet anyway. 

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I think coastal areas are more marginal than inland. It has always been the case but now with AGW - more so. 

There will still be cold and snow but the “room for manoeuvre” will be smaller. It’ll still snow whether uppers are -12C or -9C, but when a historical -7C upper air temp setup is now -5C, we’re bound to have more rain & sleet upsets. 

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a major newsworthy cold outbreak in future years, where the margins are very safe e.g. beast from the east. Look at what’s happened in Scandinavia this year. 

Margins are tight in this country anyway when it comes to snow. An already marginal setup will become even more so. 

It is depressing, but I don’t think snow and cold
are completely gone for good. Not yet anyway. 

Just wait till the Gulf Stream shuts down 😉

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Just wait till the Gulf Stream shuts down 😉

🤣🤣🤣

Worth noting that our frequent failed winters are due to synoptics in the main, on top of the background warming.

Take this last cold spell as an example - yes it may have been a degree or so warmer than it would have been 30 years ago. However the main reason it was seen as so mediocre for many was the longevity (or lack of it). It was generally cold enough for most, but why on earth did those Greenland heights just evaporate into thin air so suddenly, when the supposed background conditions were allegedly so conducive to cold? 

Are the warmer temps causing large-scale synoptic changes too? Almost certainly, but I wouldn’t like to try and even attempt to explain what’s going on there. I bet even the best minds don’t really know. 

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Just wait till the Gulf Stream shuts down 😉

This is funny as I had only just mentioned to the other half that we haven't watched that film for a while now lol 🤣

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Just wait till the Gulf Stream shuts down 😉

That is the great white hope for colder British winters, and its long been postulated.  May be not so fanciful as one might think.
 

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We've now had a 10cm snowfall in four consecutive years (Feb 21, Dec 22, Mar 23, Jan 24). Don't think this has happened since 1984-87 and a far cry from the rock bottom hell period from 2014-20 when there were none at all with the disastrous Cockroach from the East being the low point for that excruciatingly awful period.

It certainly wasn't a degree or so warmer than 30 years ago. Managed a max of -1.1C and even in the cold 1961-70 period the only Januaries to manage a max as low as that were 1963 and 1968.

Still only managed 7 days lying snow this winter which is not good and combined with all the rain very much on course still to rank as one of the worst ever recorded. The last few days have been dire mostly for wind rather than rain but yet again the Weekend Curse has been the worst aspect as it just won't disappear. Snowy spell coincided perfectly with the week to be replaced by utter garbage as soon as the weekend arrived. Just look at the sun hours:

Wed - 6.5hrs
Thu - 6.1hrs
Fri - 4.5hrs
Sat - 0.0hrs
Sun -0.2hrs
Mon - 6.0hrs

🤢🤢🤢

Just defies any sort of rational explanation how often nonsense like this occurs 🙄

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Fast becoming a close but no cigar Winter here! 

The last two weeks offered promise but delivered just a dusting of graupel two weeks ago and nothing but cold last week.

Now we are having gales to contend with and anticipation of damage being done....not for me!

Already looking forward to Spring to be honest, hopefully a dry and sunny one!

 

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