So far, superb!

A lovely, mild December, then a snowy January. One fall of 7"+ last Friday and snow fell on 6 consecutive days, making 9 days this winter that snow has fallen here. Snow on the ground for a week, sledging opportunities galour, and all this without have to endure perishing temperatures. Almost ideal

8/10 so far

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So far, superb!

A lovely, mild December, then a snowy January. One fall of 7"+ last Friday and snow fell on 6 consecutive days, making 9 days this winter that snow has fallen here. Snow on the ground for a week, sledging opportunities galour, and all this without have to endure perishing temperatures. Almost ideal

8/10 so far

The temperature thing stands out  as the let down, coldest night here was -6.3 and coldest day -2c. The day temp was cold by any standards but would have been even colder if we could have had clear skies at night for some - double digits.

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Part of me is glad the snow has gone. Everything was like a sheet of ice on Friday and the simple task of walking was ridiculously hard.

The snow we had on the 18th and 20th was great, the best here since February 1991.

The word I would use to describe winter 2012/13 is "interesting". We have had warm days, cold days, wet days, dry days, sunny days, dreary days, foggy days, and snowy days - surely you can't want for more than that from an interest point of view.

The one ingredient missing has been deeply entrenched real cold, which would have made the marginal events more interesting, but hey, there is still a few weeks left for this winter.

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The local roads were dangerous this morning, very icy.

In fact, there's a BBC article about the number of black ice related accidents in the SE this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-21228344

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 and all this without have to endure perishing temperatures. Almost ideal

 

LOL. You never stop.

 

The last cold spell surprised me in being far less cold but much snowier than I'd expected. We too got a couple of great sledging sessions in.

But I'm a sucker for snow in the lead up to and over Xmas. That counts double for me in terms of how I rate a winter, and 2012's festive period was depressingly mild and snowless (especially disappointing given the 'failed' cold spell that the models had been gearing up for)

Almost at the two-thirds stage, I'd give this winter 5/10 so far (3/10 for Dec; 7/10 for Jan).

If - and it's a rather large 'if' - Feb goes the way of some of the recent output which has shown/hinted at some impressive cold, then it may even end up as a very noteable/memorable winter. After a dreary December and very mild early January, that'd be some achievement.

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It's not over yet but so far it has been dull and grey.  Yes, the snow this month provided a little respite from the grey drizzly days but they were still overcast days.  The wind and rain this week with sunny mornings has for me added a little more variety, so January has been good, but December was dull and boring.  We'll see what February brings.

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Yet another January goes by without a notable Scandinavian high easterly again. The last occasion was 1996.

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Yet another January goes by without a notable Scandinavian high easterly again. The last occasion was 1996.

17years, incredible really , shows how hard it is

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Mostly unremarkable. A handful of bouts of light snow, a few frosts and a little freezing fog. Certainly nothing historical or noteworthy IMBY though the mild conditions in December were nice from a personal point of view

Average to poor winter compared with last 3 or so

But reasonable at least in the south, compared to quite a few winters in the past decade.

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Very disappointing. I can't ever remember a winter offering so much and delivering so little for me.

Dull as ditchwater for the most part - a half decent 'coldish' spell sandwiched between cloudy mild zonal crap and partly sunny coolish zonal crap.

Synoptically, one of the most complex winters for years. We have had lows disrupting over the UK, sliders etc, another one is predicted to occur, Sunday and Monday. A lot of winters are fairly simple, zonal spells, blocking spells etc with detail just need fine tuning but this winter has been very had to pin down at times. It really has been hard for the last month to give a weekly forecast!

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Synoptically, one of the most complex winters for years. We have had lows disrupting over the UK, sliders etc, another one is predicted to occur, Sunday and Monday. A lot of winters are fairly simple, zonal spells, blocking spells etc with detail just need fine tuning but this winter has been very had to pin down at times. It really has been hard for the last month to give a weekly forecast!

Yes, I'd agree with that and despite people being dissatisfied locally, when you look at the bigger picture, there have been a fair number of snow events across the country this winter.  Some places had snow in November, very few had any in December but January and February have produced more days with snow falling at least somewhere in the country, with further potential.

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I'd agree with that. 11 days of snowfall so far this year. Sunday 20 Jan was a particularly good one with continuous moderate snow falling all day, very nice to watch from inside a warm pub.

Also it has been the most interesting winter to watch the models that I can remember. They have really been all over the place a lot of the time. If only there had been a decent cold airmass in Europe to tap into, this would have been a true classic winter.

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It's been a very raw winter with quite lengthy cold periods, and ample but not overly disruptive snow.

It was milder through Christmas but often windy and wet so it still felt cold.
This is witnessed by the first spring flowers such as snowdrops and crocus which even here will often start to show by mid-January but are only now pushing through in 2nd week of Feb.

The higher ground is adorned with large snow drifts from the January snow which so every sign of hanging around well into March.
 

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A soaking wet December was tolerable as it was on the mild side. Some interesting scenery resulted from the flooding but it did make getting out and about rather more tricky, particularly when trying to walk in the countryside - that month scores 6/10.

January was persistently damp and chilly, with below average sunshine and a fair number of really very dull, damp and murky days - the most I can ever remember seeing in one month. Even with a substantial snow event giving 7cm lying snow for two days and 3-5cm for two more (gradual thaw), the month only scores 2/10 for me (with no event it would have been 1/10). It may seem harsh, but the fact is that it remained very dull for much of the time while the snow was on the ground, reducing it's scenic appeal, and it seems like a lot of people didn't get so much out of it because of there being so many germs going around - which seems to be a situation brought about by the persistent damp chill.

February hasn't done a lot to improve on January, with today and yesterday being particularly dreary. However, some brighter, showery weather was of some interest and enjoyment last week, so currently the month stands at 3/10.

 

So currently the winter only gets 3/10... can February save things? For comparison, last winter, despite being pathetic for snow, scores 6/10 for me because of how useable the weather was what with the drought and often mild temperatures.

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I suppose everyone has got varying aspirations of what the ideal winter should deliver. Many of us would want to see at least some snowfall. I personally do like to see the proper winter stuff cut its teeth and I have a distinct memory of all significant snowfalls since 1958, in my various locations around the South West, (mostly Bristol). Using the criteria (loosely) that a significant fall is at least 5cm and this had to stay on the ground for at least 1 day.

I have counted 48 such falls in this time. 6 of those were in 62/63 and 4 of them in 78/79. Also 3 of them were in April! There were also 2 memorable freezing rain events in 1961 and 1995.

Admittedly this does not tell the whole story…………… the amazing blizzard of 29/30 Dec 1962 with 6 foot drifts in the town only counts as 1, and the record cold February of 1986 had no falls to meet the criteria!

Using this as a benchmark with 48 snow events over 56 winters I would say that this winter with 1 fall of 15cm (so far) has come in a little better than average.

Some heavy snow for over an hour yesterday has improved February's score to 5/10. If the snow had settled more than slightly and lasted overnight, it would have risen to 6 or even 7/10.

As it is, if some brighter, drier weather occurs during the second half of the month, the rating will rise a point or two If it was also bitterly cold... it'd turn out to be a good month in my books.

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