feb1991blizzard

I dont doubt that we have had warmer weather over the last 20 years but it is a fact that we have spells like this throughout planet earths existance. Also why is it always just a 'blip' when we have an exceptionally cold month, rather than evidence of cooling but when we have a hot month it is always global warming.

I would say average based on the current model output for the first half of the month and the met office 6 - 15 dayer but i suspect their 15 - 30 dayer may be underestimating the possibility of a late may heatwave. Its just a hunch but i belive the cooler spells will only be slightly below average and there will be one spell of significantly above average temps. 12.8c please

Lets hope the wet members correspond with the -5 uppers members although even then there is not enough of the -5 uppers members to suggest there is a real chance of some of the showers turning wintry.

I have been meaning to have a go at this for the last couple of months so i hope i dont forget this time. I am going to wait until tommorow though to see what the met office have done with their 30 dayer after the ECM 30 day ensemble model run today.

Thanks John. Unbelivable really. I see the newspapers were overdoing it again though saying it could snow untill June lol. I knew the december cold spell would end just as the Newspapers started tempting fate and saying it would last the whole winter without any support whatsoever from the majority of meteorologists. Still that April snow was pretty remarkable. The latest i have experienced heavy disruptive snow was around 5th march 1987 and about the same time in 1995 although to be fair i have only lived up North recently.

12 metres deep. If only i could experience those conditions it would seem like all my christmases had come at once and no kidding a lot of other things i have seen in my life would pale into insignificance. Have you got any pictures of it to upload please?

Here is the Aberdeen ensemble graphs on the wetter charts or you can view the individual runs on meteociel if thats any help. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php

Heres one that doesnt quite meet your criteria and a rather obscure one that no one seems to talk about on here but the spell of weather as a whole did bring the first widespread disruptive snowfall to less favourable parts of the midlands since feb 1991 (4 or 5 inches to lower levels) This chart actually only brought showers down the east and south east but then on monday morning they made their way across the south midlands southern and south west England bringing some parts their first meaningfull snow for a long time (IOW i think if i remember correctly). The meteociel one is better. It actually shows how widespread the -14 uppers were in central southern England which is unusually cold. http://www.meteociel...=0&map=0&mode=0 The chart below is the one that actually brought the heavy snow to many parts of britain as systems associated with the low pushed up from the south west came up against a south easterly airflow. I remember the last bit of PPN was forecast to be rain as the milder air pushed the colder air out of the way but this didnt materialise where i lived and the snow stopped about lunch time in the midlands and then cold clear weather prevailed and temps fell sharply overnight protecting the snowfall. http://www.meteociel...=0&map=0&mode=0

Whilst i dont doubt your integrity, i read articles almost daily that are to the contrary. I know that people will say that the article below is bound to be biast and i wont try and deny my political beliefs but the same can be said of papers like the guardian being biast the other way. http://www.dailymail...scientists.html I would like to hear your evidence that climate change has definately been brought about by c02 emissions in layman's terms for someone like me who doesnt even have a GCSE in physics let alone a degree or masters. Whilst it still wouldnt make me change my mind that petrol prices are too high and i still believe that people have the right to drive around in what they want without the government taxing them silly amounts, it at least might go some way to convincing me that there is some truth in the claim of man made climate change.

My biggest bugbear with the politicians with regard to global warming is that they will always have you belive that 99.9% of scientists say that it is a 100% man made event when this is just not true. Of course the ones that work for the government are going to say that because they know that they will lose a well paid job if they dare not to toe the political line (eg. the drugs czar). It is probably something like 70% of worldwide scientists who conclude that it is our CO2 omissions and other man made contributary factors that have led to climate change over the last 30 years or so. I am not going to be smug enough to say that i know more than the experts but i would like to point out a few things in the interests of balance. 1) This planet has existed for about 4 billion years and has warmed and cooled significantly many thousands of times during its existance without any substancial effect from man before. 2) To prove this we have many road names in this country like vine road and the like which suggests that wine grapes were grown here just a few hundred years ago. 3) In the Earlly 90s climatologists in britain were saying they were not sure if global warming was man made or not and that many many more years were needed to produce a difinative assesment, yet by 2000 they were sure it was. That is a pretty big swing of opinion based on such a short sample time (10 years is a ridiculasly short given how long this planet has existed). To me that smacks of a few left wing politicians wanting to tax people more who dared to work hard enough to be able to afford a decent car. 4) Hundreds of millions of years ago carbon dioxide was many many times more prevalent in the earths atmosphere than it is today, even through previous ice ages in the earths history yet scientists today use it as one of the main reasons why the planets temperature has increased over the last few decades. 5) Whenever we get unusually severe cold spells like the 2009-2010 one and the late 2010 one, some climatologists / meteoroglogists always seem to say 'its just a blip' yet when we have a staggeringly hot summer like 2003 then it always seems to be due to the effects of global warming. 6) The last 3 winters in this country have been colder than average when at least the first 2 of them were expected to be very mild.

Yes i see your point. I suppose its the same as having a winter where you have 6 weeks of the winter with massively below ave temps and blizzards interspersed with 6 weeks of extreme mild. Satistically it would be only an average winter but perception would be that it would be a very severe winter.

Forgive me if i am talking rubbish but surely how wet a summer is defined by the same criteria as winter. How wet 2cm below the soil surface is irrelavent as other variables can affect this such as sunshine hours. A wet summer is defined by rainfall above the 30 year average. If 1mm above the monthly average falls in one thunderstorm and nothing else for 30 days in June, July and August i was under the impression that it is still statistically a wetter than average summer.

Here is a link to the met office website. This is an excellent resolution map showing the long term averages for a wide range of different weather types. One slight criticism of it is there are no place names on it. I wonder if any computer buffs on here know any way that you could superimpose place names on so you would be able to see to the nearest few hundred metres exactly what rainfall, snowfall etc areas get. http://www.metoffice.../ukmapavge.html

Its my first year in the pennines and im sure someone will tell me that snow has fallen in higher parts of this district but i am pretty sure that the last day of falling snow to this level was 7th jan and i am definately sure that there has been no lying snow since then. I did see cars going past with snow on them on that saturday morning in february (battleground snow event) but when i went to bed the previous night the precipitation had already started here and it was most definately rain although i suppose it could of briefly turned to snow but i doubt it. If the 7th of jan was the last snow of the winter here then that is pretty remarkable really even on the lowest parts (600ft) for an area which has a notorious micro climate when it comes to heavy snowfall.

Continuing with the trend of the other models. It looks like the final nail in the coffin today. Watch the GFS and the ECM tonight trend away even more from cold. Plus im sure any model is capable of modelling upto T48. Im not too sure i would take its 120 output too seriously though admittedly. GME Didnt finish off too bad -6 uppers over us for a while.

The GME starting to roll out. Out to T30 and its not good news. The atlantic LP considerably further north. Azores high ridging towards the euro postion a lot quicker ready for the death rattle. The final rights are being written im afraid after the mornings dreadful output. sorry to be the bearer of bad news..

Excellent idea. Just one question though. Will the forecast team and the selected posters still give their views on the normal model thread as often though? What i mean is we dont want to have the normal thread diluted by losing some of the intellegent posts because they have been posted on a different thread.