There's been a few posts popping up in the MO thread looking at longer range and even signals setting up for early winter, so I reckon it's time for a thread where people can ponder the weather for the upcoming winter, and just discuss winter generally - both serious MO-based discussion and the sort of banal crap I usually come out with!

This from Russ on the Wirral caught my eye. 

Originally Posted by: Russwirral

Consistent signals across a number of outputs of a height rise to our North West by mid November.

Could potentially be our first cold spell starting to show itself

There's also some GFS perts been appearing that show some strong/resilient northern/Arctic blocking later in November. I know there's a degree of optimism before the start of every winter along the lines of 'will this be a good one?', but expectations and excitement seem to have been worn down over the years on TWO by a combination of age, cynicism, repeated disappointments, and good/enthusiastic posters being driven away by the perma-miserable.

I don't think TWO will ever recapture the innocent exuberance of the 00's, but those of us who are left standing and those more recent joiners, could at least make an effort in here!

Edited by moderator 03 November 2021 14:56:33(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Good idea Saint - Good thread and I hope everyone makes full advanatge of it.

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow

To add, TWO is at its best when you get posters who obviously know their meteorology to a high level share their thoughts on how a situation is developing across a wider area than the North Atlantic, explaining how the knock-on effects of certain set-ups impact us.

 

 

Great to have a dedicated winter thread at last. There are some knwolegable posters on TWO none more so than Gavin P. His reasearch and analysis of every driver of our climate and seasons is second to none. Its well watching his winter updates each week on his you tube channel.Going on those and my limited understanding my bet is this coming winter will be slightly below average,temperature wise and a back loaded one with a cold february/march.

Nice to see the return of a wintry thread. When the clocks go back and the 12Z charts start coming out from 3.30pm you know silly season is starting.

I hope we get some good contributions too this winter. I am sure people will start posting again when things look exciting.

Like you say Martin, there is some interest in the charts for late November, Northern blocking and the threat of cold air making its way South, the Met Office also seem to think the potential for some wintry showers later in the month. Potentially a front loaded winter with La Nina, but of course anything could happen.
I doubt any start of winter will ever be as good as 2010 again, such a perfect start to winter.

Whatever happens it will be on a knife edge and more runs will, I'm sure, be needed. 

Originally Posted by: Essan

Last time we had snow on the ground here in November was 2010 - and that winter ended on the 26th December.   And there wasn't a single flake of snow the whole of the following year.

I prefer winters like 2017/8 with a few short spells of colder/snowy weather scattered throughout the season.

We had none in Nov 2010! But I'd take that spell again in a heartbeat. 

To be honest, the holy grail for me is a cold & snowy spell in the lead up to, and over Xmas. We got that in both 2009 & 2010 (just made it past Xmas Day on both occasions, the thaw winning on 27th and 28th Dec respectively). Was pretty deep snow both times, too. If I get that, I'm fine with the rest of the winter not being up to much.

Failing that Xmas Wonderland scenario, I like a prolonged spell (3-4 weeks) at any point, ideally with snow at the beginning. 

The Nov/Dec 2010 spell was wonderfully freezing (and I got an early taster in York at the end of Nov), but bone dry here (a few times the MO forecast snow here, a couple of instances up to 24 hours in advance, but then they backtracked at the final hurdle), until that big frontal fall on the 17th Dec. any other time of year - especially with most other areas getting snow a lot earlier - and I'd have been super-frustrated.

That's why the 5th Jan 10 fall was so good - the deepest snow IMBY in at least 25 winters, and stayed on the ground for about 3 weeks (the bulldozed snow-piles made on the local supermarket car park were still there into Feb)

We had more falls - and probably more total accumulation of snow - in Jan/Mar 2013, with 4 weekend falls (3 of which topped 12cm, the other about 4cm) and a couple of other lighter coverings. But on every occasion, the snow was gone within 3-4 days. It sounds like this would be close to your preferred winter, but for me the brevity of the lying snow made it seem a bit underwhelming (particularly after 2009/10 and 2010/11, and probably not helped by where I work in Manchester getting hardly any snow)

Originally Posted by: westv

Maybe my imagination but it often seems a November with cold and snow is followed by a mild winter.

Hope so !!

If people want to let-off steam, just go to the Up In Arms and share your opinion on Brexit.

As with every year, once we get the leaves off the trees, we start looking for signals of wintryness for the season.

Unfortunatley, we learn something new every year which steers us to a marginal nightmare :D

Looking forward to this year yet again, the count down to christmas. If I cant get a snowy xmas, then i would at least take a sub zero shopping experience, with some mulled wine under clear skies and its only 5.30pm. Always fun.

Personally (and hopefully) I think us here in the north west are well over due something decent. For those of you who dont know, give a cold wind direction and there will be a reason it means snow wont fall on us on merseyside. I would argue that some southerners who do poorly for snow, actually do better than us (overall)

Fingers crossed