AderynCoch

I knew without looking that Craig Evans would say 8C.

The crap thing about this month so far is that there's been no window of high pressure to bring a period of crisp sunny days and frosty nights. This was completely absent for the whole of last "winter" and we're struggling again so far this time round, even though the Atlantic is nowhere near as rampant. These frosty interludes were fairly common even during the mainly snowless 1988-2008 era and unlike snowmageddon-type weather it's not unreasonable to expect them to come along now and then. At least it's colder today and there might be something brewing from Christmas Day onwards, but more blandness to endure until then.

Exactly, we can't say whether the OPI has worked or not based on December alone. I'll start to worry if January slowly disappears down the snow drain.

It will be absolutely ridiculous if we break daily CET records this week because the actual synoptics, though mild, don't look anything like record-breaking a la Bartlett High. We struggle to get real cold from persistent NWerlies because the Arctic air is too slow getting here and gets modified along the way, but as soon as the wind direction veers even slightly south of west we're suddenly looking at temperatures of 15C and the possibility of the warmest December CET day ever! Sod's Law as far as I'm concerned (which has been in force a lot during the bland year of 2014).

Exactly. It's loading the dice to a desperate, ridiculous extreme. The same thing happens in summer when some people start going on about how the long nights are coming when June has barely begun. January is a dark month and a thoroughly miserable one when there's no wintriness about. Just like December but without Christmas.

Yep, hence all that heavy rain last night. The right side of marginal and it would have magically disappeared!

By the way I don't know where all this snow was that people are talking about. I saw the odd hail shower earlier on and that was that. Staying up just to see sheets of cold rain was bemusing to say the least. So much for evaporative cooling.

Me too actually. Of course nothing is set in stone in the first half of December but there has been a real element of Sod's Law to the weather for some time now. The background signals so far have indeed been favourable as predicted but we keep missing out. 2014 really has been a bland year. Come to think of it December 2011 was different in this regard in that the background signals were poor and the weather we did get for the first two-thirds of the month was about as good as we could have expected thanks to a favourably-tilted jet stream (NW-SE). We need a bit more luck at the moment.

Evaporative cooling was a key feature in the December 2011 event too. Come to think of it transient snow was forecast for the early hours of the 16th but it didn't arrive, only for an unexpected fall to occur in the afternoon. That's as good as that winter got for me unfortunately.

This appears to have similarities with 16th December 2011, when a low pressure centre to the south allowed an incursion of colder air and brought a temporary layer of lowland snow. Got about 1-2cm here in the afternoon, which lasted into the night. In fact this month so far has been rather reminiscent of early December 2011 with its polar maritime hail showers. I just hope it doesn't end up mimicking the final third of the month, which was thoroughly mild and bland. Fingers crossed for tonight anyway. Incidentally the aforementioned event was the last time I saw lying snow (I was in Australia over 2012/13).

Here comes the squall line. Nice to remove any southerly element from the wind direction.

On and off hail showers here. Reminds me a bit of early December 2011. Wouldn't be surprised to see some thunder and lightning thrown in as well.

It's going to happen isn't it? We're going to have the warmest year on record without it being that warm at all. Terrible.

Very sad to hear. He was the first storm chaser I ever heard of. He can't have been that old either.

3.9

She was also wrong about the White Christmases. Only 1938 and 1981 in the last century? Off the top of my head there was a widespread White Christmas in 1906, 1927 and 1970. In fact I'm not sure 1981 technically counts given most places didn't see any actual snowfall on the day itself.

A very grey, raw-feeling morning. It does actually feel like winter now (I know it's still technically autumn).

It will be a statistical travesty if 2014 ends up as the warmest year on record (as looks likely). 1990 and 2006 are worthy of being up there because they had a lot of very warm/hot weather on offer. 1995 is too (it only missed out on the record because of the cold December). Not this year - granted, it wasn't the worst summer ever but August was a crushing disappointment. The bulk of the anomalous warmth has come from bland synoptics during the rest of the year; consistently above average rather than exceptionally so, with an emphasis on above-average minima instead of enjoyably-high daytime temperatures. An utterly bland, ready salted year which has no business being the warmest on record. 2011 has no business being second either (or third for that matter, which it looks like it will be soon). Come on December, take one for the team.

Straight onto the wine here. Crap weather, crap football results.

8.0

I need a time machine to go back to 1934. I wouldn't mind the ridiculous temperatures so much if the sun bothered to come out (I enjoyed late October 2005 for that reason) but this setup really is awful. Absolutely awful. No taste of summer here, just a(nother) horrible clammy grey day. I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw the sun for more than five minutes. If there's such thing as hell I'm sure there's a constant flow of Atlantic southwesterlies there.

I'm not sure October should be included in this thread because there have been too many boring Octobers to count. But it really has been a boring October. One windy day when the ghost of Gonzalo took a visit and that's it really. The last week really does sum it up - ready salted weather.

Sun? What sun?

A thoroughly unpleasant morning here. First the rain, then the wind, then the hail, then the thunder and lightning. I've still got the lights on as well. But now the sun's just come out!

First time I've seen the eye pass over on a webcam. Ironic really that it happened in Bermuda, hundreds of miles from anywhere else. The way it changed so quickly from roaring winds to eerie silence and back again was quite something.