Emz by the Thames

Transport for Bucks say hoar frost tonight. I love the chill and the bright days but It takes me 20 mins to defrost my car!!

Ah, such a pretty morning, sunlight though mist is lovely - nothing like forecasted over the weekend. I didn't think it was that cold - but I scraped my car only for it to freeze up again while in Tesco! And when your car is 17 years old, it's tricky! My locks refroze in the car park and I had try various methods to unfreeze it!! I must have looked like a right lemon, though!!

#murdersleet on Twitter did make me laugh this weekend. I know newspapers have to be sensational in order to get our attention...but the rhetoric of the press has been downright silly with the weather recently. My allotment is 60m asl highter than my flat at 115m...just enough elevation for a little snow to settle..so at least I got a snowball fight this weekend..with mini snowballs I might add! I'm going to put my cards on the table and say meh for now, snow by Valentine's Day. Based on nothing but reading weather tea leaves!

First medium-sized flakes of this cold spell falling now, settling on the roof. Even though it's not much, it's still enchanting.

Lights flickering in the pub!

Many places seeing more snow than here, it's tunred back to sleet - the grass has a tiny, slushy covering but that's all! No snowman building for me today...I might go down the pub!!

Sleety/wet snow down in the rather warm A40 valley, bigger flakes on the hills a mile away, really hope it starts to settle here.

Been madly busy last few days, catching up with everything after illness and so I haven't been weather watching - was there a fog warning for S Bucks last night? Because I couldn't even see the end of the road this morning and I read flights were cancelled. Edit: oh sorry, meant to say it's back and it's even worse! No warning??

Tonsillitis fever plus 12.1c outside at night makes for feeling more like the Bahamas that Christmas. I am so hot. Having said that, dozing on the allotment in a mild breeze and hazy sun, very pleasant. I think "front loaded winter" was simply "a few frosts".

Temps tumbling fast, just hit 0.8.c, going to be colder than last night I feel. 0.7 now as I type, really falling fast.

Fire brigade here at 5am apparently - 10cms flood along a large stretch of road became a one lane traffic issue. That will happen again tomorrow no doubt and it will take 20mins to get out of our estate again!!

Have never noticed the 'torrential' orange bar on NWx precip forceast before - but it appears for early Sunday morn! A belated Happy birthday to Dami! Owing to living in a small flat with new furniture, there is no room for an xmas tree, so I went on Pintrest and found a funky hanging xmas tree to make using large sticks. Question is - do I snap/chop the sticks off the trees in the sun tomorrow - or just wait for Sunday and see what tree debris is on the ground after the wind and rain!!

Wind warning folks http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/#?WT.mc_id=Twitter_Warnings_Rain&tab=warnings&map=Warnings&zoom=5&lon=-3.50&lat=55.50&fcTime=1479340800&regionName=se

Well that was an odd kind of dizzle mizzle rain-ish grey stuff yesterday. My Dad got married yesterday and driving though Bucks to the wedding was like driving though the lowlands or the lake district as the top of hills just disappeared in the greyness! And we're back to the teens at night so the winter duvet is too hot...bah! Cold, please. North Bucks on Meto for Friday - a snow and then a lightning symbol!!

Oooh so chilly! It was -1.c on my unreliable thermometer at 7.30am, first morning I'd had to properly scrape the car. And the leaves on the ground are crisp! My niece lives in Harrogate, it's her birthday tomorrow. The anticipation of snow on her birthday is too much to bear, I hope she isn't disappointed. He excitement and apprehension just twigged something in my brain - do you remember the Powergen ITV Weather intros of the 90s? I loved them...but If I heard this one, I remember running to the telly at 100mph!!

Thanks for the reply! I am fascinated by weather lore, it'll be interesting to see if early migration of swallows tells us anything about this winter.

Spider cocooned a seed head in webs in High Wycombe yesterday.

I know this is random - but I just clicked on an old post from 2009 and saw this nature observation from @Pomeroysnow Local lore (Pomeroy Co.Tyrone) points to the swallows, if in October the swallow stays the winter will be mild, if in September the swallow goes the winter will be cold.... The swallows left in September this year, this last 5 years they have stayed into the second week of October! We all know what happened in 2009! Any word on those swallows now?

More fog, it's like fog is now the norm..although it's November now (pinch, punch etc) - November Fog Index?. I think yesterday was one of my favourite autumn days ever. The sun was warm, the leaf colour looked amazing and I even saw a spider cocooning a dandelion seedhead while walking to the supermarket. Halloween fun, then fog - perfect!

Well it should have had the common decency to appear while I was awake!! In all seriousness though, the OFI is just folklore monitering, it's not science.

Oh lord, it was worse than that, the night before the storm, one of the kids insisted on eating sandwiches his mother made for him 2 days before instead of camp food and was stuck down with food poisoning and being a senior club member, it was my job to look after him. Not because the other adults were busy, but because they were drunk!! Wouldn't happen these days!! Looking outside it looks like OFI is going to squeeze in one more October fog night, I think that's 6? I just looked in my wildlife diary (I'm a RSPB member) and apart from some wildlife notes, I noticed that last year on November 1st there was a fog and I noted it was the first foggy day I had seen "in a very long time". So from this I conclude that there was no fog at all here in Bucks last October. And we know what lost winter was like. I'm interested in this October fog folklore!

Happened to me too on youth club camp! One of those July belters that goes on for ages. By 4am the rain was coming in and a nearby tree was struck, the situation was untenable so it was decided we would all take our sleeping bags and sleep in the changing rooms of a nearby leisure centre. Then our camp leader lost her contact lenses in the furore and couldn't drive us home, it was a disaster . - Not a shred of sunshine today yet it was quite mild. We had a lot to do on the allotment an we were in t-shirts by the afternoon - phew. Having a bout of insomnia at the mo so have woken up at 4am and I'm surprised to see dense fog! I last looked at Meto about 6pm last night and there was no warning at all, looked again just now and sure enough there's a warning - but not for Bucks....eeek! They should have updated. It's very thick fog here and the M40 is less than a mile away. Anyway! Another point for the October Fog Index!

I'll never forget it because my sister came to visit and insisted on staying in a tent!! Even though it snowed, she still slept in it! - The weather is not really as forecast, constant very light rain out there. It's pretty much my last day on the allotment until next year and I was hoping for dry!

Do you know what happened on this very day 28th October in Bucks 8 years ago....? This!!!

Well we certainly have fog! High Wycombe has disappeared and that can only be a good thing .I think that's the fourth fog morning here this month but this is the most dense/prolonged. re: Rainfall, I'm sure they said on the BBC forecast parts of the south had only had 20/30% of expected rainfall this month. I bought a water butt for my allotment...but there's nothing to put in it. Shame about Southwold being knocked about, I would have thought that part of town would have been a conservation area? Parking at the town centre hotels is tricky...that's why we stay at the Randolph (and they do smashing breakfasts!).