Since there has been a few posts on this forum over a fair wee while which have been calling for this thread to be started, I thought that this would be the best time to start that given that we are now into the meteorological.

 

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Spring into Storm Freya is not a good start.

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Winter 1975 was very mild with little snow but that changed in March which was a cold month with frequent snow, I lived in Birmingham at the time and Maundy Thursday on the 27th brought a great Cheshire Gap snowfall that brought the City Centre to a standstill, 15cms fell at Edgbaston. Further snow fell over the next two weeks with some amazing April snow showers. Then to top it all a freak snowfall on the 2 nd June was followed by a hot summer.....fantastic

So to 2019 and after a similar very mild winter what do we face? Gales, heavy cold rain and raging zonality which will probably lead to a miserable, damp dreary Easter and a northern blocking summer.

For all those people looking forward to some spring snow like 1975 all I can see is look at the models and don't hold your breath.

Andy

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Yes! Big moan and spring is only a day or so old!

What get's me is that after that failure of a blocking in January or end of January following the major SSW end of December 18 - other members and including myself thought "Well, it's only January and we have the rest of February to go and possibly MARCH for northern blocking!" Yet February turns out to be the warmest and driest since records began and Met Office forecasts were wrong as were many LRF and models like the BCC, CFSv2, JMA, UKMO and the ECM!? With no cold spell or even cold snap with temperatures into mid or upper teens and even low 20's with no rain for 2-3 weeks (at least here in Exeter). I really think there should be some postmortems into what went so badly wrong with every LR models and forecasts!? Also our very own Met Office forecast? - The Met Office always said there was a chance of colder and blocked weather more likely and not once did they say warmer than average in Feb, let alone temperatures some 10c above normal? Why didn't the Met Office pick up on this? I'll accept it if the Met office said something like becoming unseasonably mild and feeling warm in the sunshine?" - But nothing not even in their shorter range forecast!  

This January and February there was little if any frost too. It was so unseasonal!

The stroke of midnight as we approach the first day of Meteorological spring we hear of Storm Freya, and we then get average temperatures and more wind and rain for the foreseeable future and it's in a spring month! This was what I didn't want- just a really bad coincidence that it's virtually the first few days of spring we actually see some significant rain esp with storm Freya and with this storm we could end up seeing more rain than the whole of winter 2018/19 put together within the first few days!
What a terrible start to spring!! Dire and sick and outside it's mild- in fact too mild 13c. YUCK! 

 

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Unrelenting zonality taking us well into March. Spring has been and gone. I daresay we can write off most if not all of March already.

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Unrelenting zonality taking us well into March. Spring has been and gone. I daresay we can write off most if not all of March already.

Write it off for what though  ?

Possibly some wintry surprises this month which would suit me. 

It would be unusual if the month had no snow and no pleasant dry days either, both those will do for me. 

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Write it off for what though  ?

Possibly some wintry surprises this month which would suit me. 

It would be unusual if the month had no snow and no pleasant dry days either, both those will do for me. 

Its a spring month so writing off anything particularly springlike. I would not be at all surprised if the temperatures we saw last week won't be bettered until May.

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Its a spring month so writing off anything particularly springlike. I would not be at all surprised if the temperatures we saw last week won't be bettered until May.

Here we go again.. slightly different spin on the same old rubbish. No doubt it will rain on a few days in early June and you’ll be telling us that summer is a write off. 

I thought you had given up with this tiresome nonsense given the backlash you always receive.. no lessons learnt I suppose.

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Here we go again.. slightly different spin on the same old rubbish. No doubt it will rain on a few days in early June and you’ll be telling us that summer is a write off. 

I thought you had given up with this tiresome nonsense given the backlash you always receive.. no lessons learnt I suppose.

Its the spring moaning thread mate. Chill out.....I put it in here for a reason, for the same reason that dear old RichAbdn does. Take a chill pill. If you really take me seriously in this thread then you need to take a break, it was very much tongue in cheek. 😂😂😂

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My moaning: I’ve just had a shed delivered that needs assembling and it’s going to be far too windy and wet to do that this weekend And I’ve got a week off to do some building work from the 11th and the weather looks like being still dire then.

Knowing the British climate of course I should have chosen February to get those outdoor jobs done!

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Spring is the rubbishest season 

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Spring is the rubbishest season 

It's the best season for me but I don't really like March much. I think it's just because by this time of year I'm impatient for things to warm up and March often doesn't deliver that, and as we found out last year and in 2013 can be extremely cold & wintry. It's not normally until April that proper spring warmth arrives but of course this year we had April in February, the vagracies of the Britih weather, eh?

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It's the best season for me but I don't really like March much. I think it's just because by this time of year I'm impatient for things to warm up and March often doesn't deliver that, and as we found out last year and in 2013 can be extremely cold & wintry. It's not normally until April that proper spring warmth arrives but of course this year we had April in February, the vagracies of the Britih weather, eh?

 

A cold & snowy March is great (although the snow melts tragically quickly) but even in warmer spells it's never really warm. April's just as bad. And both months are usually depressingly wet. A warm & sunny May is nice, though.

 

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A cold & snowy March is great (although the snow melts tragically quickly) but even in warmer spells it's never really warm. April's just as bad. And both months are usually depressingly wet. A warm & sunny May is nice, though.

 

March 2013 was fascinating meteorologically but it felt like winter was just going on and on. It was well into April when the cold finally relented and by then I had had more than enough of it.

I do question your assertation that March & April are 'depressingly wet' though. Spring is actually the driest season on average.

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March 2013 was fascinating meteorologically but it felt like winter was just going on and on. It was well into April when the cold finally relented and by then I had had more than enough of it.

I do question your assertation that March & April are 'depressingly wet' though. Spring is actually the driest season on average.

 

Statistically you're right. It just always feels damp.

April is my least liked month of the year. 

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Well I finally managed a snowfall last night, impressive for a time as well but of course its March so by morning it had all melted.

Better than nothing? Hmmm, not really, just depressing.

Andy

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A nasty start to spring, if I'm honest, and next week isn't looking any better either. Still I suppose it's better to get all the unsettled muck now than in May (hopefully).

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At the moment, we have weak El Nino, a westerly QBO, a positive AO and a positive NAO with not a single bit of northern blocking in sight and if this was winter just now, I am in doubt that we would probably be getting some record mild temperatures with all of that in place, as we saw during February.

Not that we are no longer in winter though and are into what is supposed to be "spring", there are some parts of the UK which over the last day or so have now suddenly getting those elusive falls of snow which they weren't even getting during the actual winter, despite all of those above factors being in place.

With that in mind, you really couldn't make that one up!!

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Not that we are no longer in winter though and are into what is supposed to be "spring", there are some parts of the UK which over the last day or so have now suddenly getting those elusive falls of snow which they weren't even getting during the actual winter, despite all of those above factors being in place.

Lucky them. Would be nice to see some snow IMBY, having had none at all all winter. No chance of that, though, just rain and poxy gales (seriously: I've had enough already of these 50mph+ gusts, but according to the GFS every day this week aside from today will see some - oh, goody.)

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A nasty start to spring, if I'm honest, and next week isn't looking any better either.

 

Yup - I think it's rained every single day in spring so far in Manchester...

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