Woollymummy

I remember this. We lived near Holsworthy in North Devon in an isolated bungalow, my Dad and I visited our farmer neighbours by sledge walking on top of packed drifts and going over the hedgerows with the sledge, it was very cold but fun. I was 5 1/2. My little sister and I used the log shed roof as a mini sledging hill, Dad built us an igloo, and we spent hours outside making snow animals. Absolute heaven for kids.

it's the only time we can get away with it without too much guilt, by always preceding a quick flick through netweather with,"Just checking for snow!"

Am I right in thinking it will also make our days a bit longer as periods of high angular momentum make the earth spin a bit slower? Is that right?

I'm tempted to get on a train and head West with the kids as soon as it snows, a bit like a day out at the seaside but with sledges.

"Nearly half of U.S. stocks are in a bear market" by Matt Egan @mattmegan5January 8, 2016: 1:54 PM ET "There hasn't been a bear market in the U.S. since the Great Recession. And even after the atrocious start to 2016, Wall Street isn't close to a bear market. The major indexes have to plunge 20% below their previous high to be in one." (From CNN Money) The bears are welcome to come and live here for a little bit if they like.... I know we are not meant to get over-excited every time we log on to this thread and we should be looking for the bigger picture, but I am looking forward to seeing if the possibly low temperatures turn out the way they just seemed to have on GFS, even if we have no snow, a frost can be just as memorable and can lead to ice-skating possibilities in unusual places.

I felt like watching some dolphins swimming today, so I had a look at the NH jetstream animation for a while and that did the trick. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?ech=6&code=0&mode=5&carte=1

That's ok, wasn't sure what you knew

It's just a wave moving along, if you are one of the dots in the picture, and the wave is going along in the direction of the bottom arrow, left to right, the wave will pass by you and things in that wave, in this case air moving, will change direction relative to you. The more amplified the wave, the bigger the change in direction.

we had a frosty walk to school, I thought this might cheer us up, nicked the other one off a friend's FB page:

You all do an amazing job, I didn't put a chart in because my comment was about other people, and their lack of relevance, and about moaning about my socks, as it was the ranting, moaning thread. I honestly didn't mean to offend any team members, The threads would look worse than my socks if you weren't there to monitor them :-)

But some people seem to post what they like and their posts remain, while others get noticed straight away.... I am going to go and darn my homemade handspun knitted winter socks, as it has been so many years since I needed them that the moths have eaten big holes

warm air advection...warm air moving into a colder region, like what will hopefully happen when the Atlantic ridge of high-pressure warm air is squeezed up towards the arctic....

This is what I plan to do in my back yard when it gets chilly enough

It is a lot lovelier to see it in your 3D mind's eye than a flat picture, thank you!

thought I would just check the daily express "UK snow forecast" page to see if it was gloating, and it said this... Page Missing Mystery! Well, we tried. We really did try. But we just cannot find the page that you were looking for. It’s a real shame but we hope you decide to look at a different page on the Express while we try to figure out where it’s got to. You could always use the search box at the top of the site and try again. Or maybe you’d like to see something from these sections instead? NO! I want to see your snow report! he he....

We might need a mini - storm just before the snow; I was in Oxford about ten years ago when there was thunder, lightning, hail and as soon as the hail had covered the ground very sudden snow, which then stuck and stayed for ages, it would have melted were it not for the hail.

Sad to see the high pressure going from the arctic.... http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast2/wx_maps/html/z500_anom_nhbg_animation.html

I think it is ultimately helpful to see the excitement building even if it comes to nothing, as it helps those of us who have no experience of weather model watching during a cold spell to learn what the signals are, the importance of watching changes in the Pacific affecting UK, looking at the way the state of the atmosphere in July can hint at what we get in Jan/Feb (is that right?) and if the bonus is snow and ice, so be it, looking forward to it immensely, but if it all spins the wrong way, at least we know what to look for next time.

5.4 please x

I think it is too far into the future, so prob will not happen, or if it does prob will not be as strong or in that particular place, more likely something will happen to make a different outcome instead.

Happy New Year from Oxfordshire to you all; hey guess what? Just got a lift back with the kids from a party and the car windscreen was frosted over and doors iced shut, haven't felt it actually being cold for ages, here's hoping we get a little bit of nice winter frost and snow sometime before summer. Xx

A local example, old farm plot near the river Windrush, up for sale this week at 4.5 million, advertised with a concept map for the development of over 20 riverside properties in a flood risk zone. Great idea. People are unfortunately sometimes naturally greedy, competitive and stupid, hence we have buildings being built on unsuitable land and people being lured into them. No matter what the weather/climate/storm tracks of the future, this perverse human behaviour will lead to trouble for someone.

Where is Gibby? I have not seen any updates from him for ages.

I think the past few years have shown a real need for experimental land-use changes to test the effects of upland treeplanting/scrub development on water flow in the catchments most affected so far, and maybe eg sheep farmers need to be persuaded to become coppice managers. We very nearly moved to Keynsham in 1984 and prob would have ended up in a vulnerable floodplain, but luckily my mum got a job in East Anglia so I grew up on a flood-free hill. I feel so sorry for everyone trapped in a vulnerable flood zone now, as well as the immediate risks of today's storm, the prospects of years to come of more misery must be very dismal for them.

Hard defences v soft defences: sounds like my geography lessons in 1987. Surely you can understand a hard concrete barrier will not absorb water and energy, merely deflect them? This article I just read describes moronic complaints about sea oats on dune systems blocking the view from condominiums, where deluded people presumably think concrete walls will save them. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/come-hell-or-high-water-the-disaster-scenario-that-is-south-florida/article25552300/ What we need is infrastructure design to include wetland that is valued not because it is an empty potential building plot or grouse-shooting estate, but because it is a dune, shingle beach, sphagnum bog, water meadow, forest, fen or marsh. Without more of those old natural structures in our soggy country, there will be more disasters.