m1chaels

Still 'cold from the West' which I'm afraid I will only believe when I see it - there will be a short wave and the cold will be mixed out.

Obviously clutching at straws and it will be downgraded because it is from a Westerly direction and thus will get mixed out, but the BBC forecast has a sleet symbol for us next Monday, first time for several week that we have seen the snowflake used.

WE (two teams of 15 lads inc subs) all drove considerable distance at 1pm to warm up for a football match, pitch was soft but playable and forecast was for 'showers'. Spent 45 mins 'warming up' in a down pour by the end of which the pitch was no longer playable. If the forecast had been anywhere near accurate on the amount of rain then we wouldn't have needed to bother.

No kids football since about 2nd of December with first ice then snow then xmas and now Jan is looking in doubt as everything will no doubt be waterlogged - kids will have forgotten which end of a football you are supposed to kick.... Whilst I said the mild weather was a win in terms of heating bills the rain is not doing us any favours.

Last December when the CET was 6.38 and we used 4400 kwh, this year despite the much lower CET we are on track for 3500 depending on the temperature outrun - I consider that a win. We are hoping that our annual usage will be down from 38k to 20k. Has to do something when it looked like our combined bill would go from 2k a year to 8k....

During the week of 'winter' we used £15 of gas per day, this week we are using less than half. I would be happy with a blow torch Atlantic for the rest of the winter perhaps with one more cold snap. Sorry, up until this year when gas was one quarter the price I was a coldie but things change....

Thanks, didn't realise the ECM went out beyond 10 days. Anyway for the seasonal weather loving non energy bill payers there is a cold incursion forecast starting on boxing day with snow overnight and into the 27th. Interesting detail for me is the (surface) winds never really get round past a Westerly which isn't normally where we see cold weather coming from. Presumably this means that nearer the time a short wave will develop and the cold will be mixed out?

Does anyone know which model output the BBC weather longer forecast is based on? Is it GFS? A few days ago it had a cold post xmas solution for one day then went back to average for 3 or 4 days but it is back to cold again today starting boxing day. I guess this means there are potentially two patterns and uncertainty around which will materialise and it is still 144 hours+ away (I know you could get all this by following the MAD thread or the model outputs themselves but just looking at the long range BBC website graphics once a day is a lot easier)

What I always think is weird is that the 'average' temp will be the highest between 6am and 6pm plus the lowest between 6pm and 6am tomorrow so that -1.6 will never be counted in the calcs.

Yes, went outside and there was a slightly different feel to the air. Rothamsted has gone from -4 earlier this evening to -1

Sublime.....

Rothamsted (CET station~)-5C at 10AM - I honestly don't recall such low daytime temps in recent times. Also BBC forecast has 'flopped' now showing much cooler and snow/sleet including xmas day after the short warm spell

Local weather stations reported 22mm...in 10 minutes yesterday!

Back edge Squall line just passed through St Albans, more intense than I expected.

There was mention on the radio of the models showing a heat wave 30+ for early MAy - any sign of this in the real world?

4:20 is the nominated time for using the weed burner....

Its snowing...on EastEnders - how on earth did they manage to arrange that?

Euro (BBC) forecast has downgraded the extent and longevity of the cold later next week but of course there are other models

WE haven't made it past 6 degrees yet - not looking forward to 4+ days of cloud and low temps, no sign of any wintery precipitation though. At least one sharpish frost forecast too for the gardeners to bear in mind.

On the news this AM - was a meteor

Hmm - 4 days of cold cloudy N/NE winds form the middle of the week - I guess it continues to dry out the ground but I can't say it sounds like a plus even for the coldies.

Wasn't the CFS 5 days ago saying we would be back in cold air tomorrow?!

Every time we get a cold snap I always make a mental note to build one of those snowmakers using an air compressor and a power hose - never happens of course......

Weirdly there is nothing showing (for me?) on that promising looking French radar site Meteociel - Radar zoom carte dynamique WWW.METEOCIEL.FR Meteociel propose le radar français de Méteo-France sous forme de cartes avec zoom dynamique.

So I was wondering why on earth there was a moorland fire in the middle of winter having associated them with high temperatures and drought. I was wondering if 'freeze drying' might be the issue, have the low temperatures removed all the moisture from the foliage making the area flammable despite the low temperatures?