Alan Medlock Valley

Our local news in December 2009 gave us a full 30 mins (all of the program) warning us on an upcoming snowstorm which was due to hit the next day, they warned us of I think 50cm of snow falling overnight and into the morning and as a consequence to have a shovel, blankets, torch to hand. And guess what it didn't even happen, the following day we opened the curtains to just a fine drizzle. There wasn't even any snow on the Pennine passes either, a complete flop that was but just a few weeks later we had a foot of snow.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn38417.png nothing record breakingly warm or cold about those temps across Europe at this time of year, so don't despair. Looks like Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and some of the Baltic countries will see their first measurable snowfalls. Again nothing strange about that at the close of October.

Hmmm the Euro slug may well wake up from it's Summer slumber....again. You wouldn't bet against it.

Let's face it we have more chance of a cold Winter than a hot Summer in this country, over the past 5 years less overall warmth has been the more dominant pattern all year-round. Take what you will from that.

The fact is the UK will never have a true Continental Climate due to us being surrounded by water and having the Gulf stream (North Atlantic Drift) flowing to the NW of us. But cities like Edmonton, Minneapolis, Warsaw or Moscow are guaranteed severe cold spells in 9 out of 10 Winters. If an "ice age" occurs in years to come and the Gulf stream does in fact weaken then that could change. Of course the past few Winters here were harsh - but only for UK standards. If you had someone from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia or North America living here at that time they would of probably laughed at "only" a week or so of ice days. So IF we are getting colder Winters then we have a long way to go before we rival other places on our same latitude or even areas like North America that are further South than us who get far worse sustained cold than the UK.

I reckon if a record/s have stood for a while and then broken then it is newsworthy which ever way you look at it. Especially if it part of a trend.

1 in 50 year Winter?...Looks like Joe B is really sticking his neck out then for our Winter. Not surprisingly the worst Winter I have experienced was 62/63 as a young lad. So if it comes close then I will be surprised. Incidently that was almost exactly 50 years ago, could that be a positive omen or not? Winter will soon be here before we know it so we'll see.

Moscow starting to fall into single digit max's this week: http://www.wundergro...uSelect=WEATHER. Whereas in the Siberian city of Yakutsk it is even colder with sub zero max's starting by next Monday and it will stay like that there until late March. http://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:00000.1.24959

There's been much more spiders this year than last coming in our house - not sure if they know something we don't haha

Well just look at what happens near the frozen solid Great Lakes in the US, they can get over three feet of snow in 48 hours from lake effect snow there.

These are max temps for Berlin in Jan 1987, must of been fresh walking in this.......http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/maps/city?LANG=en&PLZ=_____&PLZN=_____&WMO=10384&ART=MAX&CONT=euro&R=0&LEVEL=150&REGION=0001&LAND=DL&NOREGION=1&MOD=&TMX=&TMN=&SON=&PRE=&MONAT=&OFFS=&SORT=&MM=01&YY=1987&WEEK=4 Sorry for the long link.

Indeed and that basically forces bitter easterly winds into Western Europe i.e the UK.

I bet most on here didn't expect November 2010 and just how severe that was Yes many different synoptics involved in determining how cold or mild it may be, one thing that always sticks in my mind is if Berlin isn't in the freezer then the UK doesn't have much chance of being in it either. Once that cold starts creeping westwards from Berlin then there's a chance.

It was here, I think where you are being almost at sea level you may not have had the disruption we had in East and North Manchester. See here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/nw/print.html: scroll down to "snowfall" and after the last graph it says: A notable example was the blizzard of 5-6 February 1996 when more than 15 cm of snow fell in low-lying parts of Lancashire and drifts were up to 2 metres deep.

I have a good tolerance to cold, in the study it is 15C in here as I am typing........now to a lot of people that would feel very cold but I am ok with a woolly jumper and hot drinks/food. A couple of layers and you're fine in October, a good 13.5 tog duvet does the trick aswell! When Winter comes I can relax by putting the heating on whenever I like knowing I've saved a few bob this Autumn by not having it on very often.

The last time we had a proper blizzard was Feb 1996, they are a rare occurrence here. Other times after that mostly just heavy snow with not enough wind to say true blizzard.

Apparently the weather station there is located at 81m asl.

Places high up and hill tops (not mountain tops) are actually warmer at night than lower places in frost hollow valley locations like here, hilly ground generally get more snow but temps are held up by a few degrees at night. Oldham town centre is on a hill top (about 200-240m) so the cold air filters away from the town centre into places like here a few miles away. That's why you'll see places like Altnaharra which is of a similar height to here that gets frosts more often. See here: http://www.weatheron...rost-hollow.htm

Yes I agree with John on this, although I was born a few years after 1947 my parents told me about how bad it was in terms of having to climb out of the bedroom window as the snowdrifts were that bad blocking the doors and downstairs windows. So I think most on here would get fed up after a few weeks of that amount of snow. Although let's face it it is highly unlikely to happen like that this Winter, if not it would of happened again by now but it hasn't, 1962/63 was bad but not as bad as 1947.

I record similar minimums as Woodford sometimes even colder, I live in a potent valley frost hollow too, and it is a shame that I cannot compare my low mins to Woodford's anymore. It used to be fun to compare.

Queensbury in West Yorks is another town that does very well, again being near 1000 feet, you will find it less hard getting a place there with it being bigger, also not that far to move compared to Cumbria

How about Alston in Cumbria, it is apparently 1,000 feet up. Right on the spine of the Pennines. Might be a shortage of houses though for rent there due to the size of the place.

To be honest I think the best place in England if you like snow is the North York Moors. Just far enough inland aswell and on target for north sea snow from either a northerly or easterly. Also Buxton, Flash and even where you are right now are good places. But again North York Moors would be the best bet.

We're 6-7 miles east of Salford and we had quite a bit in Feb 2009, it fell overnight. It was wind driven aswell, in the field here we had some slight drifting too.

Here we usually do well for most snow events, we're just far enough east to get snow from easterly's with the snow travelling over the Pennines, whereas if I lived just 4 or 5 miles to the west that would be a different story. We can do well from Irish sea streamers and also cold front events when they come down from the North, sometimes when this happenes there's been an almighty crack of thunder then hail then as the cold sets in behind the cold front it then snows. Overall we do get at least one decent fall of snow each Winter. We've never had a snowless Winter around here in my 50 odd years of living.