Any thoughts, musings, or essays on how this winter is going in here rather than the other threads please.

You can be UK-wide in your thoughts or IMBY, but please use this thread not the MO, Media, etc. threads for this sort of post.

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Monday 14th Jan - Thurs 17th Jan. Bright and promising build-up.
Fri 18th Jan: Brilliant - plenty of snow at last.
Sat 19th Jan - Fri 25th Jan: Frustratingly marginal virtually frost-free damp cloudy sleety slow thawing tosh.

See ya!

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So far, so disappointing ......

The best thing about it here is that we've had 3 ice days (2 in December, 1 last week) all of which have occurred without there being persisting freezing fog or snow on the ground.  

That's unusual.

Also unusual is the way snow has failed to settle in my garden (though it has elsewhere) - perhaps because the ground has been too warm/wet?   I don't think all the rain we had last Monday helped.   In past years, not only has my garden readily accepted the snow, but it's tended to linger there longer than elsewhere.

But it's the lack of decent frosts that make this a poor winter for me, so far.  Given me -6c and a lingering all-day frost than transient snow, any day!

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Leading up to Christmas/New Years Eve disappointing more worringly exceptional rain and flooding

After Christmas pretty much the norm untill last Friday to today where for our side SE Wales exceptional amount of snow but no sub zero temps

All in all almost two thirds the way through winter now, summing up as one of the oddest winters so far with the exception of 63 and 82 and a few others that escape my memory

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Pretty dissapointing to be honest.

December was a wash out and the failed colde spell didnt help much

January has promised so much but delivered so little, we've had no more than a couple of cm at best over the last week and no real noteable snowfall apart from a heavy couple of hours last Friday night. Theres still snow lying but the whole thing has been a bit of non-starter IMBY.

I guess the problem that I face (and others) is that following the outlandish snowfalls of 2009 & 2010 up here when we had: 

• Over 24 inches of lying snow


• Huge icicles hanging off of buildings everywhere


• Literally digging cars out


• Having to clear road junctions ourselves just to get moving


• Daytime tempratures of -10 and lower


• JCB'S trying to clear major roads


• Scotlands major arterial motorway shut for 3 days (no work )


• Scotlands two major airports doing their open/shut, open/shut routine

We were totally spoiled and it will now take a massive event to top it whilst still reasonably fresh in the memory.

I guess the above is why I shouldnt really mump and moan when others are getting their turn just now 

Weird winter so far. A decent enough bit of snow at times in the last week or so (several falls of 3 inches or more)  but all in a very marginal situation where the difference between snow and no snow is a few miles or a few meters in altitude. I also can't remember a winter period where the temp has varied so little between day time highs and night time lows. At times this past week it's been a 1c difference! There have been no noteable sub zero temps during this cold spell at all. It's also been endlessly dull recently with incessant cloud cover.

As mentioned above 2009/10 and 2010/11 were about as good as it gets - Nov/Dec 2010 especially. It will live long in the memory. Last winter will be remembered too for just how dire it was!

So in summary - bit strange but just glad it's improved on last year!

 

101

Weird winter so far. A decent enough bit of snow at times in the last week or so (several falls of 3 inches or more)  but all in a very marginal situation where the difference between snow and no snow is a few miles or a few meters in altitude. I also can't remember a winter period where the temp has varied so little between day time highs and night time lows. At times this past week it's been a 1c difference! There have been no noteable sub zero temps during this cold spell at all. It's also been endlessly dull recently with incessant cloud cover.

As mentioned above 2009/10 and 2010/11 were about as good as it gets - Nov/Dec 2010 especially. It will live long in the memory. Last winter will be remembered too for just how dire it was!

So in summary - bit strange but just glad it's improved on last year!

 

101

Agreed, the above says it all as far as I'm concerned.

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Hi everyone

To me also this cold spell has seemed strange, never really that cold, but somehow there is a foot of snow here in Somerset! (albeit quite high up in Somerset)

But it is nice to have some seasonal weather, makes Spring feel better when it comes.

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What I find significant about this winter and was the case with last winter is that the mild synoptics has not completely dictated terms as was the case in recent past winters. It may surprise you but this is the 5th consecutive winter that has recorded a spell of at least a fortnight in the CET region of close to 0C or below.

So the question is why couldn't we produce such spells from 1987-88 to 2007-08 for most of those winters? The argument that our winters have fundamentally changed, that we can't produce northerly blocking, that the best we can hope for are northerly topplers etc is dead. How the hell can we have had 5 consecutive winters recording a spell of at least a fortnight in length that was at least 0C, if that was the case?

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What I find significant about this winter and was the case with last winter is that the mild synoptics has not completely dictated terms as was the case in recent past winters. It may surprise you but this is the 5th consecutive winter that has recorded a spell of at least a fortnight in the CET region of close to 0C or below. So the question is why couldn't we produce such spells from 1987-88 to 2007-08 for most of those winters? The argument that our winters have fundamentally changed, that we can't produce northerly blocking, that the best we can hope for are northerly topplers etc is dead. How the hell can we have had 5 consecutive winters recording a spell of at least a fortnight in length that was at least 0C, if that was the case?

Indeed, perhaps it's the melting sea ice? not that I'm a scientist or anything but yes there has defintely something that has happened to our recent Winters. This is an interesting read - although the contents may or may not be true, I guess it is just one thing that could have contributed, though not proven >> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120227111052.htm

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hows the winter going ? far too wet after a wet spring, summer and autumn. very few frosts and there seem to be a lot of totally grey days . also not a lot of windy days. pretty drab to be honest.

 

hows the winter going ? far too wet after a wet spring, summer and autumn. very few frosts and there seem to be a lot of totally grey days . also not a lot of windy days. pretty drab to be honest.

Its been exactly the same here.cold spell? what cold spell lowest minimum temp here has been about -3c

Feel sorry for the folks that may flooded out in other parts when the rapid thaw coupled with lots of rain set in over the weekend

No complaints from me about how winter has been so far.  I'd describe it overall as pretty average but for here that means decent snow events.  We've had two decent cold spells (1-13 Dec), and (12-25 Jan), a very wet spell (14-23 Dec) and a fairly benign spell at the start of this month.  The only thing missing is probably some really windy weather (could that be coming next week?) and some severe frosts (February???).  If it panned out that way then I'd say a perfectly satisfactory winter. 

2009/10 and Nov/Dec 2010 were exceptionally good so I can't and don't expect those every winter.  Nevertheless we've had some good snow in this past fortnight (albeit marginal at times).  I think if this spell had gone on just a little longer with some severe frosts it would have been a "classic".

Incredible we had snow....Good  it is going  to thaw..Then gales and rain.Bad  for floods.Bad we had to put up with ice on roads...Bad for rural and side roads....Bad beacause we need to buy snow shovel ....Good bacause it is mid-winter with chances of more to come.. 

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As the last of the cold seeps away from the south west its time IMO to score this cold spell. Its only right I think it to be scored twice compared to the winter dross pre 2009 and the "new winter" delights of post 2009.

Quick summary of events here in the far south west. The real cold did not arrive until the 17th January. Before then we did not have a frost and day time temps were around 5 - 6C. Then the low came in perfectly angled to get the cold uppers from the continent and hey presto we had 3 inches of snow. 5 miles north dartmoor took a pasting. After the intial snow of the 17th/18th January, it remained cold with no further snow. A thaw set in quickly only to be interrupted by the greatet hail/ice storm I have ever witnessed on the 21st January 30 minutes of ice fell from the sky accompanied by a soundtrack of thunder and lightening given 2 inches of hail stone cover. The cold spell the petered out.

So pre 2009: 8 out of 10

Post 2009: 5 out of 10

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What has been most dissapointing about this winter so far has been the absolute media frenzy during the current cold snap which is about to come crashing to an end. Banging on about freezing Britain and the endless news bulletins about disruption!! 

Get over yourselves you feckin' idiots!! Most of Europe has had much snowier and colder weather and yet coped with it much better than we ever do! Why can't we cope with snowy weather? Why is it such a news story? 

Let's face it folks, it hasn't been that bad, certainly not cold. There has been a distinct lack of cold and frosty days and far too much mild weather (around Xmas for example). This recent cold snap has been marginal in so many areas and down here in the south east the roads have not been badly affected at all.

We had about 7 inches of snow in Longfield from the two combined snow events last Friday and then Sunday and a lot of it is still lying on the ground, but it is not that impressive I'm afraid, afterall it snowed for 14 hours on Sunday and gained about 5 inches.

The breakdown of this cold snap is going to be wet and messy with many areas facing flooding from snowmelt and then heavy rain. Just what we don't need!!

In the history of great British winters of the last say 200 years, based on what we have had so far, I don't think this one would even make the top 50!!

 

So for me AVERAGE!

 

Ok so had one good'ish snow event but the winter for here has otherwise been nothing special. Even current cold spell has been a mild one, I can remember colder October anticyclonic dry spells colder then this current event.

10 inches of level snow = great cold spell IMO.

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Here I would say this Winter so far has been good but not excellent, still it has been better than anything we had in most of the late 90's and 00's when the best we hoped for was a 2 day toppler then the snow was gone within a few hours of it falling. 

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The positive is that we have yet another January that has provided a cold spell with mean temperatures close to freezing and snow across many regions of the UK. These were believed to be on the verge of extinction according to a few people in fairly recent years.

The negatives are that the winter has been low pressure dominated - too much wet and windy weather, not enough sunshine and frost. Indeed the recent cold spell was let down by the lack of proper frosts and also no snow showers from the North Sea - which would have also supplied the extra sunshine ingredients.