cheese

People always say 'ooh our climate is so variable' or 'ooh model watching is soo interesting' but I'm not seeing an evidence for either of those things.. all I'm seeing is a continuation of the crap we've had for all of November.

How is snow as rare as 20C if 20C has never occurred in any winter month, let alone December?

I'd like snow to fall about 3 days before Christmas - around 10-15cm or so - which would be the start of a sustained snow pack lasting until the early days of March. No major snowfalls every day - maybe once a month or so, typically 20-30cm. Average depths of around 30-40cm, so some thaws in between. Every other winter would be very snowy and feature many deep falls, sometimes in excess of 40cm, but that wouldn't be the norm. I think my dream climate is Estonia or Belarus. I like snow to be present in winter without melting entirely, but I don't want depths getting too high because that would take longer to melt - and I don't want snow to linger too long in March.

I can't say. Hard call. It's magical to wake up to a covering of snow in the morning, but I like how snow muffles the sound during the day. If it's during the Christmas period, snowfall at night with the decorations and lights feels magical.

Fell to -2.6C last night - the first air frost since 1 May, when the temperature dipped to -0.1C.

Cloudy and 3.4C after a low of -2.6C. A rather large shock to the system considering our lowest temperature of the season before the previous 48 hours was 2.7C!

The BBC national forecast also showed a band of PPN moving south over night.

Ditto for Leeds, showing snow showers tomorrow morning.

Might get more snow tomorrow.. BBC shows light snow showers. Currently 2C but feels like -2C. Brr.

Moderate snow - settling with ease surprisingly.

Hm, that's interesting. The day before had a high of 25C and a low of 19C. The 20th had a high of 27C and a low of 21C! Maybe we received a thundery breakdown on the 22nd.

22 August 1987.. high of 18C, low of 15C. Actual conditions unknown, but with such a high min temp but low max temp, overcast/wet seems likely. Shocking summer by all accounts.

A game of wait and see.. countless examples of snow being forecast only for higher levels, then for it to snow here and settle.

Extremely high Aire in Leeds, already burst in some areas.

The Aire in Leeds has burst its banks. The amount of rain here hasn't been particularly high - certainly nothing exceptional - but I think the high amount of rain in the Dales has contributed. It's rising fast this morning.

So you keep saying - but don't be surprised to find yourself in the minority. We've already exceeded our monthly average rainfall with 15 days to go - with a grand total of 10 hours of sun when we should have around 35 for the first half of November. It's a complete and total disaster of a month by all accounts. A slight saving on energy bills is the only positive aspect, somewhat mitigated by the near total lack of sun and abundance of rain. Some cool, crisp sunshine will be much welcomed after what has been an extremely dull period of weather.

Think we might go the entire autumn season without a single air frost. There's a first time for everything.

You might be thinking of 25/26 January 1995. That was a surprise fall - around 40cm. People at the West Yorkshire Playhouse were stranded overnight. People abandoned their cars en masse and walked home. It was a nightmare. About 5 days later it was 12C and the snow went bye bye. It, however, remains single best fall of snow I have ever experienced.

Feb-Mar 2005 had good snow for eastern England. Can't remember a year when we didn't get some snow.

Hope that front stays well away, today was better than expected. BBC went for overcast skies, turned out reasonably sunny. Also reached 18C vs 16C predicted. Hope they are wrong tomorrow too!

Things are getting desperate when charts showing mins of 1C are a cause for excitement..

Last winter was completely normal here so as ever location is important.

18C with sunshine right now. That's better. Low was 16C.

Doesn't matter if it's 17C or -20C - it has no bearing on winter. The weather in November is irrelevant to the weather in winter.

This weather is even worse than the foggy stuff we had a week ago. Wind is very annoying. Please fog, come back. All is forgiven. Ugh, I suspect I'll be unhappy with the weather until March if this rubbish continues. I should join Nick L in America, lol.