Walsall Wood Snow

These flakes are massive.

Very heavy snow again now with huge flakes and trying to settle.

Actually it's got lighter now and turned back to rain. It seems that if it's snow you want to see you have to depend on the heavier bursts. Case in point it's starting to get slightly heavier again as I type and therefore more sleety, but it seems to be an on off situation.

It's snowing here, moderately heavy aswell with biggish flakes. I don't know how long for though because i've only just got up and noticed. It's not settling anyway but it's nice to see some snowflakes fall.

Thanks for the reply reef. So it does seem that not all Winters are equal then in terms of the recorded period. But then again it's only 1 extra day once every 4 years anyway, so it probably makes very little difference (unless of course that one day contains record breaking cold or warmth in a Winter that had a generally opposite nature, but even then I'm not sure it would effect the final figure too much?), but being as Winter is a bit of a runt in the litter of meteorological seasonal length it is probably the one to have that extra day once every 4 years to make it equal in length to Autumn, though both seasons even then are still 1 day shorter than Spring and Summer but I suppose you can't divide 365 days into 4 and have each season contain the exact same number of 24 hour periods within them.

With this being a leap year Winter, meaning we get an extra day of meteorological Winter, I was wondering whether say the Winter CET includes the data of the 29th of February, or whether that particular day is ignored to make all records exactly equal in length? After all its an anomaly which only occurs once every 4 years whereas all other meteorological seasons are the same length every year. Although in fact not all the meteorological seasons are equal in length anyway due to the differing lengths of the months they coincide with. Spring and Summer are each 92 days long, Autumn has 91 days and Winters that end in a common year only have 90 days, whereas those that end in leap years such as this one have 91 days. Anyway I imagine the 29th of February is included in the records when they come about, but I'm not sure so if anybody does know please let me know. Though I have heard that it's already been confirmed as the mildest Winter in the CET zone so obviously it must be so much so that an extra day or two isn't going to effect that record.

It probably has a lot to do with the anticipation that the coldest/darkest quarter of the year lies ahead, whereas now we're headed towards what is generally the second warmest season of the year (disputably due to Spring snowfall possibly being slightly more common than Autumn snowfall in the British isles at least, especially in the early stage) and with daylight hours increasing, that Winter feeling is giving way. Although I agree with you generally being as the records show that March and April have probably on average delivered more snowfalls than October and November but at the same time due to a tweaking Sun in the later two months anything that falls is more likely to stick around. But then again the synoptics are rarely favourable to give lying snow much chance to stick around in late Autumn anyway despite the shortening days in this part of the world (and very often as this one shows in the depths of Winter itself) so physiology undoubtedly plays a part in expectations at that time of the year as opposed to now. Not to mention that then actual Winter lies just around the corner at that time of year (so even if we get some short lived lying snow then, many feel they might not have to wait too long for something longer lasting) whereas now we will probably (unless March by some miracle gives us a break) will ha e to go through the whole of Spring, Summer and Autumn until we can hope for some sustained Snow cover, despite that being rare most Winters anyway. But hey if lottery players didn't think they would ever stand a chance they would probably stop playing. Then again I think most of us on here know that a classic on the lines of say 1946/47 or 1962/63 is improbable in any particular year anyway. It's just a Winter with a cold and snowy spell or two like Winter 2012/13 (and no I'm not thinking about the exceptional March when I say that, just the Dec-Feb period) that most of us hope for.

Granted but my point was really that just because we didn't have a hot Summer last year (though we had a hot spell/snap) or in the last few of years doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't expect one or more anytime in the next decade. Anyway looking at your examples (besides the 2 on the trot of 75 and 76) there were quite big gaps between those ( though I've heard 84 was also a decent Summer and between then and 95 there was 89, 90 and 91) but it's pretty obvious even if you get a few warm/hot Summers in close proximity, periods with few and far between are common and nobody should be predicting the next decade based on the previous half decade.

Actually I think a 'meteorological year' should be measured from the start of Spring to the end of Winter because it would surely make more sense to measure one Winter in a meteorological year rather than 2 separate ones like we do now.

That's a bit of a bold prediction and quite frankly one you are foolish to feel confident of. Some people seem to have rather short memories band indeed we have had hot Summers, cold Winters and settled spells in the last decade and I personally think we should by the law of averages manage all of the above in the next decade at least once. Our last hot Summer was less than 2 years ago and our last cold Winter was 3 years ago (note they weren't all the way through but very, very rarely seasons are solidly extreme). That's not really long ago at all and some are acting like the weather the last 2 or 3 years has become all we can expect from now and forever and frankly it's getting tiresome.

To be honest would it have been that good if it snowed anyway? After all with at least Sunday looking mild in the southern half of the UK it's not like it would have lasted to long and with the fact we were always bound to get rain at first it would have had to have come down very heavily to have accumulated to any appreciable degree. But I suppose we're the beggars who can't be choosers and I've heard some members were just hoping to see some falling snowflakes. Not that I'm impartial to seeing some falling snowflakes, but whenever that happens it does feel like a waste of snow (even though ultimately any precipitation serves the same purpose) and at least with it only being of the liquid variety I have avoided the frustration of seeing frozen water droplets instantly melt upon impact.

This wouldn't be so bad if there hadn't have been so much promise beforehand. Then again it was always meant to be marginal anyway, so in future if that is what is forecast it would be best to expect nothing as 9 times out of 10 that's all we'll get in these situations. Those in the Peak District can always be more hopeful in these situations but it looks like one of those times even they've been unlucky. It's been a terrible Winter for us snow fans and I suppose I should count myself as one of the lucky ones been as I had a bit of snow in January but it's been little better than Winter 2013/14 and only because of the little bit of short lived lying snow we had last month, whereas 2 years ago we only had a brief shower of falling snow. I'm still holding out some hope for the end of the month and March but not much as come the time anything that shows up beforehand will be downgraded to more cold rain or miss us altogether knowing our luck. Still you've got to keep a bit of optimism haven't you!

I also had a short hail/sleet shower here about half an hour ago. Still keeping my feet on the ground as far as tomorrow night and Thursday is concerned. Still even if we don't get anything I'm still cautiously optimistic for getting snow before April with signs of the end of this month and March looking encouraging. After this Winter as far as I'm concerned Spring can wait.

Well i've worked out that my location is 145m ASL, which is something i've wanted to know for a while, so thanks for that. I don't know whether that's high enough to to do me much good in this weeks marginal setup though?

Indeed there could be a theme there of getting extreme Winters on opposite ends of the spectrum in close succession. Almost like mother nature balancing out these anomalies. After all wasn't Winter 1963/64 quite mild with little snow? Also after the generally cold and snowy Winters of the late 70s to mid 80s (which followed a period of mild Winters in the early to mid 70s), the late 80s Winters especially that of 1988/89 were quite a swing in the opposite direction. And also considering that the early 20th century was dominated with average to mild Winters up until the 40s it's interesting to note that from then onwards (excluding the bulk of the 70s and 90s) the century was dominated by average to cold Winters with nearly all the coldest ones with the exception of Winter 1916/17 occurring from 1940 onwards (though there were a few very mild ones from time to time like 1974/75 and 1988/89) and it does seem like overall the Winter quarter of the second half of the 20th century was colder than that of the first half or at least you would think so (maybe that's something you could work out with your knowledge of weather stats WH?).

I know this isn't discussing current models, but thinking back to 2013 in January wasn't there a fair bit of expectation that February would be a very cold month (due to background signals and such) and when in the end it only turned out to be marginally cold there was alot of disappointment in this thread and many thought the cold spell of January would then be it, but in the end the cold did eventually come but in March instead, I do wonder whether something similar might happen this year with initially expectations being pretty high for this month. Though of course I'd be very surprised if we got something on the same scale as March 2013 as the coldest March in half a century is surely unlikely to be matched less than half a decade later but maybe a watered down version of that is more likely, like say something akin to March 2001 or 1987 whereby we get snow but not necessarily long lasting cover.

Maybe? But I imagine there must have been times when the east and mid-west of the USA and the UK were both in cold and snowy spells at the same time? Though I admit there seems to be a link between cold weather there and mild weather here. I've heard that in the 70s the US had alot of cold Winters which corresponds to the UK having alot of mild Winters (6 in a row here) at the same time but then again i've heard Winter 1962-63 was cold in the US also (probably not as extreme by their standards as it was to us) and if I remember rightly wasn't Winter 2009-10 also cold in the US aswell as here? So maybe there is cold Winter there mild Winter here relationship, but I suppose there might be exceptions to that rule but it seems that it's perhaps only the more extreme examples (in our case) where both countries have a cold Winter.

Why 1999 ish? After all I know you seem to think the 90s were a cold Winters decade which it wasn't (except Winters 1990-91 and 1995-96 and at a push 1993-94 and 1996-97 which is less than half of the 90s Winters). Why not 1988 ish or for that matter most of the 70s when there were 6 mild and pretty snowless Winters in a row from Winter 1971-72 to Winter 1976-77. Or for that matter 1900 ish when there were only a handful of cold and snowy Winters up until the Second World War, when there was quite a contrast from then up until the beginning of the 70s. Don't forget also that we had a cluster (longer lasting than anything the 90s had to offer) of cold Winters from Winter 2008/09 to (Winter 2011/12 pretty much excepted) to Winter 2012/13 which contained some pretty impressive cold and snow stats like has been mentioned the coldest Winter overall since 1978/79 (2009/10), the coldest December since 1890 (2010, which was the most remarkable record of all) and the coldest March since 1962 (2013, which was technically Spring but nonetheless). Indeed if we are living in a so called 'christmas pudding' that recent period (only a meagre 3 years ago) would have been so unlikely to happen, it wouldn't have done.

Got to admit that this Winter has got to hold little promise when even Scandinavia and central Europe have little in the way of snow. Besides from that the mood has kind of dropped a little since earlier this week with the weekend looking less snowy than some initially hoped. This Winter though isn't over yet and I suppose March and even at a push April could give us something (even if short lived) but you wouldn't bet your house on it and maybe it's time to just except that it's going to be the third Winter in a row with little snow for the Midlands and the country as a whole for that matter. Oh well next Winter's now only 9 to 10 months away, maybe that will give us a good cold and snowy spell.

Yes but how long lasting were most of these events as I suspect most of them were short lived dumplings (Feb 91 and maybe a clue of others excepted) One of those I do remember well though and that was Nov 96 as it occured during my first year of secondary school and was the only time through my whole time of being there from Sep 96 to May 01 that I was ever sent home due to snow. I remember walking up there in quite deep snow because they hadn't decided to close for the day at first and when I got there me and the other pupils at to stand in the assembly hall and wait for what was looking more and more likely as most of the staff hadn't turned up. Then it was announced that school was called off and we could all go home and it was so exciting. Then I had to walk all the way back in deeper snow still as it was still snowing. However that night the dripping began and it went as soon as it came and the next day it was back to school. So you see as good as that event was it just didn't last. December 2000 was better because that lasted for a few days, but it occured during the Christmas holidays so no extra time off from school for that event. In fact I don't remember ever having had a day off school due to snow before Nov 96 since Feb 91. I somewhat remember Nov 93 but I don't remember school closing because of it, but maybe it did.

You often talk about the 90s Winters being snowy and as someone who spent most of my childhood through that decade (4 when it started and 14 when it ended) I can't say I remember it that way. Sure we used to get snow at some point most of those Winters but to my memory it was usually short lived. With the exception of say February 1991 which I barely remember anyway most snow events during that decade at least round here rarely stuck around for more than a day or two or if any longer it was slowly thawing anyway, at least to my mind and you live in the same region so I don't know why you remember it differently. However frost was certainly more common back then and memories of my mum having to scrape the car windows in Winter seemed like an almost daily occurrence (I'm sure it wasn't though). To me snow seemed quite rare even back then though certainly not as rare as it has been these last three Winters. Though snow was much more in abundance in the Winters from 2008-2013 than it was during the 90s (Winter 1990-91 and maybe 1995-96 excepted).

This actually shows a blob of mixed rain/snow over the Walsall area so even I may get a surprise from this. Don't expect anything of note here though but I suppose it wouldn't be impossible just unlikely (as far as proper snow is concerned). A fair chance I could see a sleety mix though looking at that.

I agree. There is nothing unusual about this being the third mild Winter in a row (up to this point of course). People are acting like this is unprecedented but it's happened many times in the past and as Mushymanrob has said there was an uninterrupted run of 6 mild Winters in the 70s. Also there were many mild Winters (or indeed mostly) in the first half of the 20th century up until the 40s. Yes there were exceptions like Winter 1916/17 but they were few and far between. I think we just have to accept that our default Winter is a mild one and we're bound to get them more often than cold ones. This just isn't (with the exception perhaps of the Scottish highlands) a snowy part of the world. The most recent normal Winter for the UK was probably Winter 2014/15. Not Winter 2009/10 or this Winter. In fact most recent Winters in the last decade have been on the extreme end of both sides of the spectrum including this one (with the very mild December anyway). I'm pretty convinced that the lack of cold and snow in this Winter and the previous two (but really only in the south last Winter) is nothing more a cluster in natural variability and at some point (maybe next Winter or maybe not) will come to an end. Just remember we've had 4 cold and snowy Winters in the last decade which is pretty good going for this part of the world.

I don't want to sound like a pointless optimist, but what we're experiencing now is probably nothing more than a temporary pattern in terms of seasonal variability. It seems that season types usually come in clusters and we have simply been in a bad one (for cold and snow fans) since 2013. The same goes for Summer. A more seasonal Summer and or Winter will crop up eventually and there may even be more than one at a time. Going back to Winter 2012/13 it closely followed three other recent cold Winters (excluding Winter 2011/12 which delivered only briefly locally but was much colder on the continent) and was obviously the last in that particular cluster. There was also a fairly good run (more so than others) of pleasant to hot Summers in the 00s pre 2007. Then there was also a run of rather damp and coolish Summers from then till 2012 followed by a decent enough Summer in 2013 and a more mixed one (which had a hot spell) in 2014. This rut were in as far as Winter is concerned won't last forever and sooner or later I'm fairly sure we will break out of it. There was much talk in the 00s of how global warming scuppered cold Winters forever but the late 00s to early 10s proved otherwise. After all the coldest December since 1890 (120 years before 2010) and the coldest March since 1962 (51 years before 2013) would have been laughed at by some as fantasy before they in fact happened. And being as 2013 was only 3 years ago (which is nothing) I don't believe climate has suddenly shifted in that time to the point of no return.

Well I suppose the 3 mild Winter then a cold one doesn't hold up then based on the fact in the 70s there were 6 mild Winters in a row starting with Winter 1970/71 to Winter 1975/76. That's quite a run, although this is for snow rather than cold alone i've known for a while that the 70s (apart from the late 70s) were a cold and snow lovers nightmare. Although there was an even longer run of colder Winters following this period up till Winter 1986/87. This spreadsheet has Winters 1979/80 and 1980/81 has having little snow though I don't believe these were necessarily mild Winters (though I wasn't born until 1985 so have no personal memory of them). It's surprising to see also so many Winters in the 20s and 30s being classed as average and snowy being as i've long held the impression that they were mild Winter dominated decades. So I wonder how accurate this is. But it's interesting to look through so thanks.