Peter H

Cold spell ? What cold spell ? Beautifully mild here today and quite sunny, almost like late April or early May.

and that was about it.

indeed, and I've had the bake chewed off me for even daring to suggest this. RTE have now revised their weekly forecast to a southwesterly regime by the end of the week. The BBC are expecting temperatures into double figures by the weekend. The snowless, largely frost free winter of 2011/212 in this part of the UK continues, with no sign of any let up.. All the long range forecasts and models for February predicting mild westerlies/southwesterlies. In fact even where it did snow at the weekend it didn't last for long. Heard some hams on 40 metres saying they had an inch of snow on Saturday, rain on Saturday night, and gone by Sunday. Wow. A few days of rather cold weather last week and everyone on this forum goes bananas.

Positively spring like here today, and not a wiff of anything remotely wintery for the rest of the week. Roll on spring. and summer. Completely fed up witth this winter noiw

Indeed, 0cm of snow in this part of the UK. Quite mild with light rain. Some disagreement between RTE and the BBC on the weekly forcast this evening, with RTE going for a bitterly cold theme later in the week whereas the BBC are keeping with the mild theme here. It'll be interesting to see who is correct.

We'll see !

..A set up similar to December 2010 in February would be fine, but it simply isn't going to happen. An easterly in this neck of the woods usually brings snow of some sort, but not this time for some reason, and the signals for the rest of the month don't look good. Still, things can change but I'm not optomistic . 0cm on of snow on the ground here. Don't know what all the fuss is about. . Oh, and you're one to talk about IMBY. Not everyone in the UK is in such a great place for snow from an Easterly.

74/75 was really bad. Most of the winters of the 1990's. and 2000's There was one December the temperatures got into the low 60's (F) and another Februay were the same thing happened (2002 ?) Winters in general have been rubbish since 1988.

Well, long term models aren't even going for that now. Back to southwesterlies and that dreaded high pressure to the south. Indeed, I think it's called the El Niño effect. Places as far south as Nice and even Barcelona have been colder than Belfast for much of this winter. Current conditions are quite mild with light rain, and still absolutely no snow at all this winter. It doesn't look good.

Hmmm. Nothing exceptional about that.

Yes: Well, it wasn't remotely comparable with 62/63 (and I know because I remember) nor 46/47 by all accounts. It wasn't even as good as 78/79, or 81/82, at least in this part of the UK. Winters such as 20o9/2010 were commonplace when I was young, and nothing exceptional. Read the link again: and that really was what I said. Had the weather in late November/December 2010 continued into January/February 2011 then it really would have been quite exceptional. However, as we all know, it suddenly stopped on Boxing Day and went pear shaped after that, with February 2011 really ending up very mild indeed. In these parts , winter 2011/2012 is yet another so called "large teapot" i.e. no snow and very little frost.

Hardly: I did say in recent years. 2009/2010 is more like what I was used to as a child. The end of November 2010 was quite exceptional, along with most of December. However, winter 2010/2011 stopped on Boxing day and February was exceptionally mild (January 2011 was simply an averagte3 winter month. I'm not whining. Only stating that some people posting on this forum don't, or haven't experienced, what a real winter actually is. A January with only one night of temporary frost was unheard of when I was young. Even the cold spell last week was simply a few days of rather cold weather, and we're now back into mild westerlies with tempteratures up to 9/10 in the early days of next week. Hardly Earth shattering. Still, some forecasting models are predicting the cold may be back at the end of next week with the possibility of a North or Northeasterly eventually. An airflow from that direction is more likely to bring snow to these parts.

Tept. of 9.0 and raining here. No snow expected. B.A.A. are going to look very silly if the snow forecast for Heathrow doesn't materialize

It's -1 here at the moment, but no ice at all as the air is so dry. Much milder weather forecasted at the weekend and the early days of next week.

The weather this week has been really not that cold here, Certainly no frost to speak of. It's set to turn milder by Saturday with rain and temperatures up to 10 /11 by Monday, so yet another non event for the west of the UK. Today was actually quite pleasant in the sunshine. Current conditions are plus 4, and partly cloudy, but very dry. The largely snowless winter here is set to continue I'm afraid..

Indeed, despite some outrageous headlines in the Daily Mirror today (2,000 a week could die from Arctic weather next week) current models seem to suggest, strongly now, that the southwesterlies will win out, initially at least. However, there is still some faint hope: http://www.metoffice...st_weather.html We often get our best snow on Northwesteries rather than Easterlies. Overall, February could still be the coldest month of the winter.. Incidentally, January in this part of the UK was completely frost free, apart from a temporary frost on Friday evening (gone by morning). That really sums up the mildness of this winter. .

Huh ? I remember several feet of snow and that was in the middle of Belfast.Buses attepting to get down the Creagagh Road (a main arterial road) had to stop and turn back. Since when did that ever happen since ? Even 78/79 or 81/82 wasn't as bad as that.

RTE are confidently predicting the mild southwesterlies will dominate by the weekend, with temperatures up to 11/12 by the early days of next week. The BBC are still saying it's very uncertain though, and the cold air could still win out. Who do we believe ? Met Éireann or the UK Met Office ? I hope Met Éireann are wrong, but I'm not optomistic.

I'd be happy with the winters I experienced as a child. Every winter in the sixties had at least one, maybe two or three snow events and a lot were frosty. None of this December through to the end of February with no frost or snow whatsoever. That was unheard of until the late eighties onwards. Winters like this (i.e. very little frost and snowless) are now commonplace and what I experienced as a child has now become the exception rather than the rule. In my opinion, the climate in this country has definitely changed. I agree late November and December 2010 were quite exceptional (I've never experienced snow like that in late November) but it simply stopped after Boxing Day. Take December out of the equation and the winter was actually very mild, February exceptionally so. Even the Alps were having severe problems with the lack of snow in the latter part of the 2010/2011 winter, so how can it have been a good one ? As I have said, just when I thought we were going to have something quite extraordinary, the whole thing went pear shaped and fizzled out. This winter has certainly been one of the mildest I've experienced in recent years. If nothing comes off in February, one of the most snowless ones as well. 2009/2010 was something closer to what all winters in the sixties were like, and probably the best since 81/82.

Might be an idea to take a look at Mike Tullet's daily summery and the synoptic charts as well. It was certainly extremely snowy in this part of the UK. I can still remember snowdrifts several feet high in April: http://www.mtullett.plus.com/1962-63/

As for July 2006, it was rubbish here. We haven't had a decent summer for at least 5 years. Last year it rained virtually every day from the end of April right through to the end of September.

Yes, I was and I also lived through 62/63. Apart from several exceptional cold weeks in December 2010, along with an extremely cold last week of November, last winter was acually rubblish. Not a drop of snow after boxing day, an average January and an extremely mild February. Just when i was thinking it would be a repeat of 62/63 the whole thing went pear shaped and completely fizzled out. The only winter that comes anywhere close to what i remember from my childhood was 2009/2010, and even that wasn't a patch on 62/63. In fact, it didn't even compare to either 78/79 or 81/82. Seems that some people on this forum don't know what a REAL winter is.

. When I was young the weather was oh so different. Always at least one period of snow in the winter, long cold frosty nights (days when the frost never lifted) and you could put water out on the path and it would freeze within a few minutes. Even when it did rain, it was nearly always preceded by snow in the winter. As for summers, always 3 or 4 weeks of sunny warm weather and a few thunderstorms. None of this seemingly endless wet and windy weather with constant rain. . All I'd like is a return to the climate of my childhood, not this miserable one. In my opinion, the UK's weather has changed in the last 40-50 years.

A hot humid summer with some thunderstorms would be nice, after this rotten winter, but that would be too much to hope for.

Back to the usual winter weather in this part of the UK, according to the Met Office this morning: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/ni/ni_forecast_weather.html All the pundits (including Netweather) predicting a cold February wrong yet again.