AderynCoch

Penzance got a lot of snow in January 1987.

10.5

Can those long-term CFS forecasts ever be considered reliable? They always seem to flip-flop at whim.

Same thing happened here about 6pm. Can't have been a single squall line because the times don't match the locations, so it must have just been strong individual squalls. It was actually a nice afternoon here and I made the most of it before things deteriorated once more in the evening (nice rainbow at least). Hopefully tomorrow will be dry all the way through, but I'm not confident. It really has been a rotten week.

Battleground events are probably the best for NW England, providing the cold air wins out. 5th February 1996 is the more recent standout example, but in the past I believe late January 1940 was a monster event. The circumstances of the war meant that not much information about the event was made public. Arctic winds swinging round from the northwest are good for Irish Sea streamers (December 2009 & 2010), but even better are when polar lows and troughs develop in the flow. December 1981 is probably a good example (I wasn't around then though). I think 28th December 2000 was a polar low event.

Not to mention last year. The year's best spell of summer weather for some of us.

Agree with the comments regarding February 2012. A few frosty days and two failed battleground events here (some slight freezing rain but otherwise heavy bog-standard rain). A classic s(t)inking high which gives most of the fun and games to places like Italy and Spain. I was not impressed at all.

Not much respite here today. Longer dry spells but still plenty of heavy downpours, which have now turned thundery.

Proper thunderstorm now. Regular thunder and lightning.

Loud thunder here and lashing it down (yet again).

Some comparisons of today's swollen River Alt near where I live with shots I took earlier in the year: 2nd March - the weir has been completely submerged 5th April

Looks like pretty bad flooding there now. I wonder how this will compare to the significant flooding which took place in 2000. The Ouse is a pretty big river by British standards.

Looks like the Alt has burst its banks. Sounds ridiculous considering it's usually little more than a stream, but it does happen. Well above the potential flood mark at Kirkby and not far off the record level: http://www.environme...?stationId=5078

The centre of the low is going to be right over Northern England, so the strongest winds will be either side to the north and south.I'd rather have the wind than the rain to be honest. The ground badly needs to dry out.

It's been raining heavily here since yesterday evening and it looks set to continue for most of tomorrow.I can't remember the last time it rained non-stop for so long.

A very, very poor day. Two days ago I was on a pub barge in Bristol drinking ale in the sun. How quickly things change. Some of the rainfall totals are going to be interesting.

It seemed very early last year. I remember how weird it felt when it turned very warm at the end of September with leaf litter everywhere.

Whereabouts in Spain are you going? If there's a sinking Scandinavian High you could be in business. I'm going to be in Australia so definitely no snow for me. At least I'll get to experience a proper summer though (I've almost forgotten what that feels like).

I'll be in Australia, so it'll be the coldest and snowiest winter ever.

Those figures are a bit off. The actual values are: December: 2.8C January: -2.9C February: 1.4C March was also very cold with a CET of 2.9C.

My ideal temperature is below freezing if we're talking about winter. I love the big coats, gloves and woolly hats. Winter mildness just makes me feel sick. Sweating in January shouldn't be allowed.

High 20s with low humidity, low to mid 20s with high humidity.

I see Jonathan Powell is back under a new guise.

Considering Aberdeen's high latitude, that summer should only just beat winter in the sunshine stakes is stunningly awful. Looking at the Manchester summer index list, it's also apparent what a poor run of summers it's been for NW England particularly. The average value is 214, yet all of the last six summers have failed to reach 200.

If I may forego the five-word rule, I wish to present my summary of Summer 2012 with five seconds of video instead: