AderynCoch

Fail x10

4.9

It's a good job they don't have Dianne Oxberry or Eno Eruotor presenting their regional weather then.

Better to get it off your chest as far as I'm concerned. It always feels cathartic.

Yes, I've been saying the same thing recently. Meanwhile more cold rain. Whoop-dee-doo.

I wonder how badly the Bristol Channel was hit by the tsunami generated by the 1755 megathrust earthquake, which flattened Lisbon. Cornwall and the south coast of Ireland were hit by a surge generally between 2 & 3 metres high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunamis_affecting_the_British_Isles#Lisbon_earthquake_.281755.29

Out of interest do you know what February would have to be like to match 88/89, and what the 88/89 index was up to this point? And you're right about the downgrades so far this winter. I haven't seen them happen to this extent before. We're out of luck at the moment.

It's a good job the non-summer of 2012 didn't happen in 2013, otherwise we'd be coming up to eight consecutive months of autumn. Perish the thought! Talking of Sydney, I was there for a few days last February and I didn't see more than five minutes of sun. We were stuck indoors one day because it rained so much. Beach weather's not exactly reliable there either, though I'd definitely risk a Sydney summer over one of ours! Having missed last winter I came back to the UK in late May after seven months of heat before heading into a good summer, so I've been looking forward to snow and frost for some time - which makes this winter so far all the more galling. I wasn't expecting constant blizzards and 20ft drifts, but the lack of frosts (one in November, one so far in January) has been appalling. I was worried a poor winter might show its hand (Sod's Law and all that) but I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it has been to date. Comparisons with most 90s/00s winters are wide of the mark - even in those mild winters there were frosty periods and crisp days with low maxima.

November and March were the two coldest months of the extended winter period (November through to March). I wonder how many times that has happened before (if at all).

Not just you. I think I actually saw snow here around midday. No, I mean it. And it wasn't sleety wet stuff either - it looked like the small grainy flakes which tend to be associated with sub-marginal easterlies. Obviously this sounds nuts: it felt way too warm out for anything even remotely wintry, and it may have been something else falling from the sky - but what? It looked and behaved every bit like those smaller, drier flakes which flutter in the breeze and take forever to reach the ground. Whatever it was it definitely wasn't rain. I should add that it was only very light precipitation which wasn't easily noticed (had it been rain you wouldn't have noticed at all). And it did start to rain not long afterwards. Any other explanations? I'm starting to doubt my own sanity here!

As there should be in January at nearly 900m above sea level. If there wasn't things would be very grim indeed at lower levels!

That was a very nice spell of weather, probably made to seem even better by what came before and after...

This was a historic cold spell for southern Iberia, bringing snow to places which hardly ever see it. Lisbon, Malaga and Seville all saw lying snow on 2nd February. I think this was the only occasion this has happened since 1900, though Lisbon had falling snow in January 2006 and Seville reportedly did in January 2010 (it may only have been sleet).

January 2007 was 8.0C to the 9th and 8.3C to the 20th. I think the first half was the mildest on record at 8.1C. Here it didn't drop below 5C at night until the 21st, and there was only one frost (23rd).

Sounds like a Monty Python sketch in the making! Eno on NW Tonight was making predicted maxima of 6-7C sound really cold. It just shows how desperate things have been of late. I remember in December 2010 finding it balmy when the temperature one day rose all the way to 2C.

The one thing which stands out for me in that article is how Russians are apparently finding their mild winter "extremely dull and depressing". It makes a nonsense of the flippant assumptions some people make about how coldies in this country would quickly get fed up of cold and snow if they had it all winter.

Those December rainfall maps are surprising to say the least. It wasn't nearly as wet as it seemed, perhaps due to rainfall being more prolonged than heavy.

Unfortunately lower usage of heating only means energy companies will raise prices even more to compensate for lack of profits. True, they'll raise prices regardless because they're greedy lying barstewards (British Gas said last May they'd use extra profits made from the preceding cold weather to stall future hikes, only to implement a 9.2% hike in November!). You can't win either way because the energy market in this country is so monopolised. With this in mind, and the fact that even when it's mild it's still difficult to go without heating, experiencing cold weather and all that it entails is well worth it for me.

No it isn't. I think I've had one frost in November and none whatsoever since. None. Add to that the sheer number of windstorms and the flooding caused by the unusually high amount of rain. It really isn't normal at all.

Strange, all of the Wirral bar Woodside is only under a flood alert at the moment but the Welsh side of the Dee is under a severe flood warning (that's two levels up). Woodside itself has a flood warning (the intermediate level). http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/142151.aspx Not to question the integrity of the Environment Agency, but you may as well put West Kirby in the red if Woodside is.

Snowless Decembers aren't unusual here (though they're always disappointing), but forget snow - I haven't had a single frost this month. No fog either (which was mostly confined to the SE). Just a complete poverty of wintry weather. A dreadful state of affairs it must be said.

A decent year overall, thanks largely to a long-awaited good summer. I wasn't here for the first four and a half months, but by all accounts it was a very good second half of winter. The last three months have been a letdown unfortunately.

A wishful 3.9.

It's 156mph of 1-minute sustained winds. Gusts are even higher. I don't know what the highest sustained wind speeds are with our North Atlantic storms.

Further to my post last night, it looks like there was a wave in the flow for the south. Don't know what charts I was looking at! Anyway, this had the effect of slackening the isobars further north thus ruining stormy prospects here. Even tomorrow is looking like a non-event for the south of the region, though you never know. And yes, I did say "ruining". I'll happily admit I like a good storm. I know some people will be thinking "But what about the potential for death and destruction?" but look at it another way; if we don't get the worst conditions somewhere else will. I'm sure Scotland and NI are fed up getting constantly battered at the moment, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Friday's storm going the same way (that's still to be decided though). All things considered, given how many Altantic storms there have been we've got off pretty lightly so far. It's like that scene in Pulp Fiction where the guy bursts out of the bathroom shooting at the two gangsters but all of the bullets miss. And enjoy the snow if you get some, but I'm sure I won't be seeing any as long as I have a hole where the sun don't shine. Humbug!