Walsall Wood Snow

Yeah you're right 17 years ago (1999/2000) we had a mild Winter. Even 18 and 19 years ago we had mild Winters (1998/99 & 1997/98). In fact with the exceptions of 1990/91, 1995/96 and 1996/97 (though 1993/94 was coldish, but more so in late Autumn) most of the 90's Winters were at best average to mild and not especially snowy, despite your insistence otherwise. Whereas in the period 2008 to 2013 (2011/12 excepted, but even that Winter had a cold spell in early February) we had some of the best Winters this country has experienced since the run of cold Winters from the late 70s to the late 80s. With 2009/10 been the coldest since 1978/79, November 2010 been the coldest since 1993 (possibly even 1985, though I'm not sure about this), December 2010 been the coldest since 1890! and March 2013 been the coldest since 1962. Yes we've have had a run of mild Winters since then but that's only 3 years (it may be longer or about to end) and has been nothing unusual as we have had other such periods in the bulk of the 00s, the late 90's, late 80s, the bulk of the 70s and going back before then the bulk of the early 20th century until the beginning of the 1940s, when we went into a period when cold Winters had become more common more or less (with the early to mid 70s excepted as I stated above) right up until the late 80s. If somebody from anywhere from the dawn of the 20th century to the 30s somehow travelled in time to post Winter 2012/13 to right now they wouldn't find the Winters since then particularly unusual to the Winters they were accustomed to during their own time period (ok Winter 2013/14 and December 2015 might be but that's because they were and will likely remain so, but so we're December 2010 and March 2013). If we were living back then though as cold fans we would find the average Winter just as frustrating for getting snow then as we have over the last 3 years. I don't know whether this Winter will be cold or not but I'm sure we'll get another one soon enough, so all this talk about Winters not been what they used to be is completely relative and in fact they are just like they used to be during certain periods. The only question is what type of past Winter will this Winter be like?

I'm certainly looking forward to the return to the real time of GMT. I'm not against BST as such but it should certainly only be a Summer thing. Also I don't get why we have 7 months for BST and only 5 for GMT. Surely they should be equally 6 months long, so either reverting back to GMT in late September or waiting to switch to BST in late April. I also saw that article in 'The Sun' about the so called potential benefits of sticking to BST in the the Winter months. It didn't convince me, but it was proposing that we stick to GMT+1 in the Winter months and adopting GMT+2 in the Summer months. That's ridiculous as it would still be light close to or during 12:00 am in Scotland especially (noticed the article was trying to have a dig at Scots as well as if they were unreasonable and didn't really matter in opposing their desire to meddle with our current time zone setup, but then again ' The Sun' in England and Wales has long now had a tradition of trashing Scotland). Also I quite like the fact it gets dark early in the late Autumn and Winter evenings and to me if that started happening an hour later it wouldn't feel right. Those that propose this change are obviously Winter haters and would love it to be Summer all year round, but meddling with the clocks wouldn't actually give us any more daylight than we have now and would just mean that daylight wouldn't start until an hour later in the morning. Also GMT would become a redundant term as its based on noon occurring on the meridian (which during BST doesn't actually occur until 1:00 pm so it's technically not the afternoon until after then, and midnight technically also doesn't occur until 1:00 am so it makes those terms incorrect to say at 12:00 pm and 12:00 am respectively during BST). Also we couldn't call it BST anymore if it becomes the time system used during Winter aswell. The thing is with these people who want to meddle with the time so much is I suspect they will never be satisfied and if such was adopted further down the line they would want to bring time forward another hour and so forth until we reach a stage when the time of day is completely out of kilter with the natural progression of the Sun. Personally I wouldn't mind reverting back to GMT all year round, but I realise it's not a popular idea and that's unlikely to ever happen now. But the current system works ok as it is, so should just be left alone.

As long as the building blocks remain in our favour, I see no need for despondency and we shouldn't feel too much in a rush to get our first cold spell. After all the longer it takes to get one the greater its potential potency. After all November can deliver cold but it's not Winter. I'd rather have a slow and gradual build up ready for a locked in attack during Winter proper than a quick fix. It's the trend that matters now more than anything.

I'm quite liking this Autumn so far. We had a very warm September (not necessarily my cup of tea, but was fascinating from a statistical standpoint) and a very dry October dominated by easterly winds, and some of the best Autumnal colours on the leaves I've seen for a few years. Would have liked some frost here, though there's still time with November still to come and some more fog (had some this morning though and again November may provide). Maybe even some late Autumn snow in November may be possible (time will tell). It's undoubtedly been the best Autumn so far since 2012 though.

No thanks, let it go all the way to the Channel I say. There are plenty of cold fans living south of Birmingham on this forum, surely you wouldn't want to deny them their fix .

I've also still yet to see a decent ground frost (though my Mum told me there was a bit on the roof of her car on the 10th of October) and certainly haven't had a air frost, so far this Autumn. This morning though was quite foggy/misty and that was the first of that phenomenon I've seen so far this Autumn which was nice to see. Hopefully I won't have to wait too much longer for my first frost of the Autumn, not that it's particularly late for our first round here of course, I think November bringing the first is more usual.

Sounds fantastic. I would love to have that much snow round here. Obviously been lower down and in a fairly built up area we didn't get it quite on that scale, but it was still quite deep with drifting and one the best snow events I can remember well, along with the deep but calmly settled snow of December 2010. Another event (or events) that occured round here which I unfortunately remember only very vaguely (been 5 at the time) was the snows of December 1990 and February 1991. I remember a fairly big drift round my Grandad's in the corner of the yard (which is actually the house we live in now). I also vaguely remember in the house we lived in at the time my Dad having to dig the car out of the drive and really struggling to get it off there as well as a couple of images of playing in it in the back garden (I've actually got 3 photographs of me standing proudly next to a snowman that I built, and the snow in the scene still coming down somewhat looks absolutely amazing). Though I don't actually remember it happening at the time, during the snowy spell of February 1991 my Uncle died and my Mum has since described that the snow was so bad that the crescent we lived on was completely blocked off with the snow drifting over our front garden wall, and she had to struggle up to the main road to meet my Grandad who was with his local parish Vicar who drove him down in his Land Rover, in order to go and sign the death certificate. Though as I say I can hardly remember these spells, though based on the descriptions from my Mum and my own vague memories of the snow, those events were quite possibly the biggest snow events I've yet witnessed round here.

Didn't you get any blizzards and drifting snow in March 2013? We did here, though the drifts weren't especially massive or anything, but there were a few around like on one side of our yard for example, though there were absolutely epic ones round other parts. I remember lying in bed at night with the snow falling in the howling wind was a great buzz. I was very shocked but pleasantly surprised when that spell occurred and it was very much akin to the snowy spells of old. Shame it was the last time we had any decent snow cover round here and feels like a really long time ago now. Let's hope Winter 2016/17 can redeliver such scenes for all of us again.

All long range forecasts are educated guesses really. Some years though will look more conducive to the likelihood of them, whereas others will look more conducive to mild weather. But it's all down to individual interpretation, and indeed nobody can say anything for sure at that range. No harm in making a punt though as long as you've got a fairly good understanding of meteorology. As Ian is a committed Christian though I'm sure he'll agree that the only one who knows for certain though is God.

The idea of you seeing the possibility at least of very cold spells during January and/or February is a bit at least a step in the right direction. Hopefully your thoughts on the prospects for cold weather this coming Winter will improve with time. Slowly but surely. I mean come on Ian we both know you really want your preliminary prediction to be a bust and what you really want your prediction to be is your fantasy Winter you posted in the 'Winter thoughts and hopes' thread .

Just out of curiosity (because I can't actually remember) did we have a thread titled the same last year or any previous year for that matter? Because if we didn't either it's a curious and good omen that such a thread only started this year (maybe hence forth such a thread would be titled 'Will this Winter be like 1947 / 1963 / 2016-2017) or this will become a common yearly thread every year until such occurs. However being as (I think though I'm not sure) this is the first year (call me superstitious if you will) such a thread has arisen gives me a feeling (no guarantees mind) that this Winter could be of a similarly epic nature. Though of course if we have had this same titled thread in the past it can't mean anything. Now that's what I call clutching at straws . Though I'll tell you something strange that happened to me before (don't really know whether to take it seriously and could be nothing more than coincidence) I remember a few weeks before the cold spell of Nov/Dec 2010, I had a dream that, that year we would have a cold and snowy Christmas. Also in February 2013 I was watching an episode of 'Ice Road Truckers'. During that episode there was a CGI demonstration of a stopped truck, which showed the potential effects of a raging blizzard on a truck, causing it to be engulfed by snow and trapped. I remember at the time having this very strange feeling come over me, like similar real life scenes would occur in this country in the not too distant future. It felt odd though I didn't give it to much attention at first. But in a matter of weeks in March 2013 there was indeed such scenes (especially on the news reports from Cumbria with trapped snow gritters and such) when the country experienced it's first nationwide blizzards in years. I don't think about this too often but when I do it still feels unexplainably strange (and I don't know whether to believe I had some strange psychic experience (I'm not even sure I believe such things) or whether it was simply the most bizarre coincidence I've ever encountered. I've had nothing on that level concerning this Winter mind, but I am starting to wonder whether the title of this thread in itself is something of a foretelling. This sounds crazy I know but it's something that was going through my mind, so I thought I'd put it out there. Make of it what you will, though I'm not sure myself even.

I was only 2 at the time, so I don't remember this event. However I have a feeling this was very much a southern England event and the effects here deep in the Midlands would have been much moderated and was maybe here nothing particularly special. I've never heard people round here refer to it for example. Whereas in documentaries or archival news reports etc, there does seem to be a focus on this events effects in the far south and any effects in the Midlands northwards isn't even mentioned, which leads me to believe these areas didn't get the brunt of it. Anyway for those areas that were affected this was undoubtedly a spectacular and even frightening event. So much so that even nearly 30 years later it is regarded as one of the most memorable events in British weather history.

Talking about Christmas, there's a house near where I work that has had it's Christmas decorations up since September. I can't believe there's people out there who do this. I've seen people have them up in November before now and even I have a tradition of putting them up on the 1st of December (and even I consider that slightly early, but I do love Christmas mind and I consider December Christmas Month), but most people don't bother until midish December. September is far to early though in my opinion, I mean it isn't even Winter (though I suppose in southern hemisphere countries such as Australia it's actually Summer at Christmas, which seems odd).

Feels quite chilly in the gentle breeze out there this evening, with Autumnal type sunshine after the intermittent grey clouds and light showers of earlier on. I've also noticed an acceleration in the change to Autumnal colours on many species of trees recently. Some are still a dull green in colour though, but there's defiantly a difference to a couple of weeks back. There's no doubt in my mind that Autumn is establishing itself.

Well it's probably no more tenuous than the above average September preceding an average to mild Winter link some seem to believe in, so if anything this just goes to prove the point that many of these links have occurred by nothing more than chance alone. I made this point in the Winter 2016/17 hopes thread, in response to the fact that Gavin on his video blog had recently made musings on the fact that since the mid 19th century we haven't had a below average Winter succeeding a above average September. It's all quite fascinating though to learn about these quirky statistics, but they certainly shouldn't be taken as any sort of rule though in my opinion.

Well Winter 1998/99 was another mild one then, making that list before 2015/16 got on there 6 mild to 4 cold. Hopefully 2016/17 will make it 5 to 5, rather than 6 to 4 again.

Even though I didn't witness it because I wasn't up early enough this morning I asked my Mum if there was any frost this morning when she went to work and she said there was some on her car roof. Though she said she didn't have to scrape the Windows and she said she didn't believe there was any on the grass or anything. This sounds like it was something of a very marginal ground frost to me, but either way to my knowledge this marks the first frost of any description here this Autumn.

So far that's 5 Winters following a top 10 mild Winter that were anything from slightly mild to very mild and 4 that were cold. Well obviously Winter 2016/17 has to be cold to equalise that number . Then again there hasn't been any very cold ones on that list so maybe this coming Winter can provide one and better yet in contrast to last Winter make it into the top 10 coldest Winters. One can dream anyway. Just out of interest though I wonder what Winter was knocked out of the top 10 mildest Winters when 2015/16 made its debut, and what the Winter following that was like?

To be frank the idea of pattern matching the CET's of certain months to determine how a certain season is likely to play out seems like an absurd one. Every year's different and there is probably no two identical years weather wise and there's no doubt there's enough room for variation in a year's weather as there is for every person's fingerprints and snowflake formations. Therefore any number of variations are possible. As for the last 150-200 years worth of above average September's preceding only at best average to mild Winters, so what. There probably isn't all that great a number of them to go on in that time so the fact this has seemed to happen in that time probably doesn't actually mean there is any sort of connection and can more than likely be put down to mere coincidence. If this is the case it's almost guaranteed by the law of averages that one year we'll get an above average September preceding a below average Winter. Though whether that'll be this year or not is probably no more unlikely than any specific year, no matter what the final CET figure for the preceding September happens to be. Therefore by taking this factor and making a call for an above average Winter you're either going to be wrong, or you're going to be right by luck alone. It becomes nothing more than a game of chance at that point.

He seems to be putting alot of emphasis on the September CET at the end of his forecast. He points out that an above average September has more often than not led to a mild Winter and shows us the records to prove his point. Though he doesn't make it out to be all doom and gloom and finds the odd ones that didn't such as 2011/12, 2005/06 and 1958/59 for example, though admittedly none of these were below average as such, but did contain periods of cold weather. He points out that you have to go back to the 18th and/or 19th centuries to find any examples of above average September's preceding any below average Winters. Though he does point out that these occurred during the LIA so it's best not to read too much into that. Though personally (and maybe I'm being biased here) I think this link is possibly mere coincidence. The only reason I think this happens so often is because periods of both above and below average temperatures can have a tendency to persist for an extended time (sometimes deviating back to average or away in the opposite direction for short bursts, but as a theme tending to remain at one extreme or the other), and it could be that many of these September's and the Winters that followed them were part of an extended period of warmer temperatures (not necessarily that one effected the other). But again it could just be a bit of a weird repeating coincidence. It just seems a little far fetched though that September's CET can cause Winter to be conclusively mild. But I don't know.

My bad. To be fair I kind of jumped the gun a bit there, and when I started thinking more clearly I realised that was probably what he meant.

I think we all know that cold in October is very unlikely to be extreme and at best would only result in some frosty nights and mornings with snow even if it happened only ever likely to be marginal and short lived. However it would at least give us a feeling that Winter is approaching and to be frank make it seem much more seasonal. I always think that by Halloween it should feel cold as well and Bonfire Night is also a time that's associated with having to wrap up warm for. I know at the end of the day even if we had cold weather now it by no means indicates snowmagedon come actual Winter but it would at least psychologically give us the feeling that there could be a good Winter approaching. Whereas mild weather now can give you the feeling of more of the same. I know this isn't necessarily so but what it's like now can certainly either boost or knock confidence.

When you say recent Winters are you referring only to the most recent 3 Winters, or say are the Winters from 2008 to 2013 included in that statement? I hope so because that at least would give us a range of options going forward, whereas if you're only referring to the Winters we've had so far since 2013 the prospects looks pretty dire from a coldies perspective. You've long been the eternal optimist though when it comes to cold Winter weather so the idea of you losing faith is a sobering one to say the least.

I know this thread is a bit tongue in cheek, but nobody could say YES at this time, and NO is a more realistic answer. Though as always we'll know the answer (well really quite some time before then) on 1st March 2017.

Oh come on. I can except you not expecting a cold Winter this year as it's only round the corner (though I do hope your wrong) . But to say that next year it's not going to be cold is stretching things a bit. Nobody can possibly know that. Though to be honest I too doubt the type of super extreme Winter you've described will happen either, surely even if you're ruling out a more normal cold Winter this year, you can't possibly be so sure about the Winter after. Maybe that's not what you mean and you think the possibility of a less extreme cold Winter 2017/18 can't be ruled out at this stage, just your ultimate fantasy scenario. If so sorry.