Arctic Hare

Right now I'm in two minds, but probably more on your side of things. I'm not an IT professional, but I have been online for a quarter of a century and using message boards for most of that time. I have to say I very much dislike seeing posts like for example "@-whoever I remember that, it was quite a month!" since it makes no sense out of context and finding the original post is harder than it used to be. I didn't actually think the old system was a particular problem, so I was surprised to see it change. But then maybe I'm biased as a couple of other forums I've moderated over the years actually introduced the quote button during my time rather than removing it, and I think NW is the first place I've ever used that's taken it away. Having said all that, I do take @Paul's point that significant changes tend to be unpopular at first even if people get used to them later, so I do think it's fair to let things bed in. Certainly it would help a lot if there were an easy way to see the earlier post contents inline, as that's by far the biggest irritation for me when I see a post like the example one I mentioned above. As things stand I can a) guess what it was, b) scroll back to try to find it, or c) get fed up and ignore it. I am finding myself doing c) quite a bit tbh.

I mean, I'd even take a repeat of winter 2019/20 if we could then have a repeat of the record-breaking sunshine of spring 2020... but without everywhere being closed!

Jocelyn was definitely worse than Isha here too. We had a fairly sizeable tree down in a nearby lane, blocking it completely, something which didn't happen anywhere during Isha. Seems to have been very patchy, though. No power cuts here, for example, despite other parts of Worcestershire having them.

Made it down to -8.1 °C last night, which is truly exceptional for here, possibly (I don't have detailed enough records) the coldest night without snow cover for at least a decade. (Dec 2010 certainly had a number of colder nights, but most of those were with snow cover.) Anything below -5/-6 takes some doing here. Certainly felt perishing when I went out at 7:45 this morning! A very nice winter's day once the sun was up, though. I'll miss this when the cloud and rain sweep back in.

Same sight here in Bewdley this morning. A mere dusting that didn't last that long with the sun out (not complaining about that!) but a pleasant surprise anyway.

I've said this in the Midlands thread a couple of times, but right now for me the key thing is for it not to be too wet. The Severn is nicely down after one of the worse floods of recent years, and we'd all rather it didn't go right up again. So cold and dry = fine, mild and dry = fine, either and wet = not fine.

Steady light rain here in N Worcs this morning. Not quite what I was imagining!

We live in the Midlands. Disappointment is part of winter for us. Admittedly that can make the unexpected surprises all the sweeter (as Gord mentions re Jan 2010) but tbh even cold and grey is almost a relief right now because it's *dry*. I really would like some more sun, though. Cold, frosty, sunny mornings are very nice, but the odd day apart there've been very few around here this time so far.

Nothing going on here in N Worcs. Cold and cloudy, but no snow or even rain to report.

The river is up above 5 metres now, generally the sign of a severe flood. No cars allowed over the town bridge, not surprising when this pic shows one of the roads leading to it! Howeve, you can still walk via that path I mentioned in my earlier post. Fortunately it's been dry today and the river should start to recede tomorrow.

Yeah, short-term rain forecasts seem to me to be an area where we really need some improvement. Obviously it's a lot harder than just "make the models better", but certainly for me in the Severn Valley they are noticeably fairly frequently well out. More so than most other types of forecast.

And now the road through Bewdley has indeed been closed to all vehicles. (There's a path that avoids the flood, and for the moment that's still open.) The river has risen 28 cm in three hours, and it's still on the up. As happened during Storm Ciaran, the level is rising very fast due to a combination of heavy rain, no soak-in and already full drains. Fortunately this time the flood barriers on the town (west) side were put up in time. No such protection on the Wribbenhall (east) bank, though: it'll be over a year until that side is fully protected, so probably several more floods to come. I'm a broken record on this I know, but I just want the rain to stop. I would bite your hand off for two weeks of anticyclonic gloom right now, that's how fed up everyone in Bewdley is with this!

Things are deteriorating in Bewdley, I'm sorry to say. The road into town by the bridge (far back left of photo) is maybe 20-30 cm from being flooded now. It hasn't stopped raining all day, and since the ground is utterly saturated, everything's running down the roads and fields straight into the Severn.

I think I'm with you on this. The main issue for me has been rain. The river in town is breaking its banks *again* today and people who live along the river are really sick of it with several months to go of the "wet season". I know it's very boring in terms of interesting weather, but an average, cloudy *but dry* January wouldn't be the worst result for me.

Absurdly mild here, maxing out at 14.1 °C. My own mildest Christmas Eve on record. Not exactly seasonal, but at least something noteworthy. The actual weather conditions weren't, though: grey, overcast and drizzly pretty much all day, with some heavier rain this evening. Still, a Merry Christmas to all my fellow Midlanders!

A pretty windy day here, but nothing that out of the ordinary for the time of year. Windiest before dawn, so by mid-morning it was just a blustery, mild winter's day - the temp is in double figures even now. Certainly nothing like the 70-80 mph gusts a couple of folks here have had! The relatively dry weather over the past few days has been an absolute godsend, in that the river is now quite a bit down and in no immediate danger of flooding. The ground being so wet means that could change quickly with a very wet week, but it's respite for the moment.

The flood barriers are up in Bewdley, but I think we'll just about avoid them being needed in anger. Another really wet week ahead and we'd be in trouble, though, and the ground is so sodden that it won't take much to bring the levels back up. As I've said ad nauseam this autumn, a dry winter is my number one weather desire this time around. It's a bigger deal than the temperature for me.

Agreed, it's been awful. I think there was a brief period today when it kind of, sort of, maybe stopped raining. But that was the limit. The Severn is noticeably higher this afternoon, running swiftly and with a lot of soil runoff in judging by the colour. Sadly it's going to be very easy for it to flood this winter unless we have a properly dry season. Probably others have seen this article, and I wouldn't go taking much notice of the text which rather implies cloud inversions are so rare as to be something you talk about seeing for years... but the photos taken on the Malverns on Saturday did cheer me up a bit: Cloud inversions captured on Malvern Hills WWW.BBC.CO.UK Amateur photographer Nick Sturdy says his images "don't do justice" to the feeling of being there.

Yep, it's been a grim day in most of the W Midlands. Same here in N Worcs, just constant cold rain. Early on it was melting the dusting of snow from last night, later it's just been making the existing puddles wetter! I won't tempt fate and say it can't get any worse, especially since we *did* have that brief bit of whiteness overnight... but I would very happily take 15 °C in January over this!

Steady rain here now. 1.2 °C. What little snow remains won't be there much longer, but at least I've had something this winter!

Light snow here in Bewdley right now. Dusting on roads. Temp is -0.6 °C.

Grr... max temp +0.1 °C, and now falling again. So close to an unexpected ice day!

Keeping an eye on Thursday of course! But before that, a slightly belated note that the night before this one (ie Sat 25 into Sun 26) was the coldest of the season so far here, -2.9 °C min. Shame Sunday itself was such a miserably grotty day!

Currently -0.4 °C here - first air frost of the season. A nice, sunny, if chilly day beforehand.

Miserable here in North Worcs today. It's barely stopped raining (albeit mostly quite lightly) since I got up, and looking at the radar the hoped-for late brightness just isn't going to happen here. Cold, too: only 7 .6 °C right now. Pretty much exactly the kind of weather I've more than had my fill of this autumn. Hopefully a little more brightness between the showers tomorrow, but today is sadly a write-off.