Harve

No, one of the GFS runs (6z?) yesterday had -8 uppers covering almost the entirety of Scotland rather than just brushing Thurso and Wick.

And more notably, that northerly starts ~156 hours, which isn't impossibly far from the reliable timeframe. It's always a very slack flow though, especially for the south, but it's impressive to see -8c uppers in Scotland nonetheless.

You think they've got this one? The lies start on the headline: there was no met office report: http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/. Since the view that the world has shown no warming in the last 16 years is one held by quite a few 'keyboard scientists', it's not a lie as such. However, it is still wrong. The link above explains how. The bottom line is that you can show many different trends depending on when you start plotting data and when you finish. The most severe problems begin with the second headline of the article, as global warming is dismissed as "the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics" (John Hayes, Conservative Energy Minister). It really is a shame that science and politics become so intertwined. But it's perhaps inevitable given the huge consequences some findings bring and that these findings often conflict with people's own interests. If AGW theories brought no consequences, I suggest there would be little to no controversy about it.

And look at the site it's coming from, which should make it clear it's a poor article. There is, in fact, no met office report. http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

A perennial Euro/Bartlett High.

I'm pretty sure the conditions in April 2012 snowfall were approaching blizzard conditions, at least above 300m. It depends what altitude you class as 'low level', but remember that there are plenty of populated places above this altitude, just nothing bigger than medium sized towns.

Simply statistically speaking, the Arctic ice extent's record lows are more significant than the Antarctic ice's record: the Arctic broke its own all-time record at least 20 times at the end of this summer / early September, not to mention that every day since the start of August has been a date record (http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm). The Antarctic broke its date record on just a few days. This is without even mentioning that the Arctic's ice is far more significant for the British Isles, or that the Arctic's ice is traditionally far more stable (the Antarctic generally comes close to completely melting out in the Southern Hemisphere's summer), or that the summer minimum extent is far more important in terms of ice albedo... While the Arctic smashing its records may be parallelled with the Antarctic breaking record highs, there is no 'global equilibrium' between Arctic and Antarctic ice. Ice extent is below average globally.

I'd rather call describe it as, in general, longer spells of moderately below average weather with short bursts of notable warmth (early January, late February, late March, late May, early August, early September).

I'm finding this quite unpredictable, but I'll go for 11c. Some wild fluctuations.

Complete amateur here: We seem to have lost the vast majority of the Arctic's ability to reflect heat now - while extent maxima may not have decreased substantially, the extent between April and August, when the sun is at its strongest, is clearly far less than yesteryear. What would worry me is if it turns out that the Arctic's incapable of cooling down as much as it did in Autumn and Winter, as that really does signal extreme warning for the rest of the world, too, as the poles could be said to be responsible for balancing-out the earth's climate. For example, the UK's northerlies become gradually less potent and in general the warm anomalies are distributed equator-wards. Given the seemingly perpetual positive anomalies on our side of the Arctic around Svalbard, north-eastern Canada and Western Greenland, it seems this may be the case.

There were iced-up cars on the other side of Derbyshire. Only until 6-7am though, and certainly no frozen puddles.

Not at all. November 2009 was notably mild, as was the first half of the following December, even. While I'm sure correlations could be made between autumn and following winter temperatures, it's nothing close to a guarantee of anything.

12.9c please. That would only be slightly below average a century ago, but would now be fairly noteworthy. I'd love to be proven wrong and for September to produce some 'remarkable' weather - thunderstorms and showers tend to subside and if anything, I perceive the Atlantic as actually temporarily slowing down during this month. Yes, its own warm records were beaten last year but it didn't feel too interesting to me compared to similarly unseasonal heatwaves such as April 2011 or even March 2012 - stronger or strengthening sun in those months, perhaps? Maybe something vaguely cool would shake my perception of September being reliably boring.

25mm of rain in Buxton so far today, little more than a few drops just 12 miles to the SSE. Wow. The deluge over south Derbyshire last night that caused some flooding also fizzled out before it got here.

I still can't work out why everyone didn't do it in the late May hot spell.

16.6 I think, almost exactly average?

Unfortunately a bit too far west, I'd say.

At first I was looking to be too far east, now it seems I'll be too far west. At this rate it'll be tracking over Burton and Nottingham.

Surely you would have had at least 5 hours of sun on 18-20th June and the 1st?

I feel for you. The difference between North Derbyshire and Mid-Staffordshire, or the difference between Mid-Wales and Shropshire, is incredible - the former being exposed to the ocean and having substantial high ground are the main reasons, I think. Here, I often get annoyed at how interesting weather often lies just a few miles to the north, but we still get the remnants of it, it'll just always be "second rate" compared. There are worse places though - try the drier places of Northern Scotland and its isles that are exceptionally cloudy and not as stormy / windy as you might expect, or closer to home, the Wirral peninsula. I do think you get more thunderstorms than here, too.

Yep, I'm pleased to say the heaviest part of it went over me! I didn't hear any thunder at all though, but it's the Westernmost "torrential" shower on the radar, so I'm grateful nonetheless. It came as a complete surprise as there was nothing at all on the raintoday radar until it was chucking it down here. The heaviest rain since August 2010, I think. I'm using the measure as "when the drain overflows and the water level climbs over the kerb and starts flooding into the drive", which is below road level.

Well, if it were on then it would certainly rival 2005/2007. I suppose they've avoided a catastrophe, at least in terms of the weather, this year.

An almost-torrential downpour passed over here about an hour ago along with the first thunder I've heard all year. I missed the two other occurrences due to having an afternoon nap and being completely engaged with an Economics exam, however neither of these were at home, which I'm sure is far less storm-prone than 10-20 miles to the south.

I think you're forgetting the spell at the end of March, which in some ways was more exceptional than May's.

But a key difference being that Vancouver experiences over double the July sunshine that Shannon does.