acbrixton

11.8 for me please. regards ACB

Reef, although it has indeed been a very mild start to the month, I think that you have over-stated the anomaly: Philip Eden estimates the mean CET to 10th April as 7.5c thus the Hadley anomaly is 2.1c and not 3c. regards ACB

My guess is 8.6c. Thanks and regards ACB

6.2 for my guess please. Hope that I am wrong though; gardening in mild spring weather is more agreeable! regards ACB

I was at Junior School in the village of Eglinton not far from 'Derry and on the coastal plain of Lough Foyle. I can certainly recall a cold month with wintry showers but rarely amounting to much. I suspect that we were sheltered to an extent from north/north westerlies by the Inishowen peninsula. regards ACB

Yes indeed...the relative ease by which snow was cleared in the 19c and early 20c is something of a recurrent theme in the contemporary press reports quoted by Mr Data. My guess is that in pre-National Assistance times (pre 1929?) the authorities were able to call upon a pool of unemployed working class men to clear the snow. regards ACB

I rather wish I had been a great deal more circumspect/cautious...hum ho. regards ACB

Richard thanks and apologies re the correction to my arithmetic! So we may 'beat' not just one but two of the 'benchmarks' of the 'even larger teapot' [i.e. a sub 3c month and 1995/6]. I agree with what you say about 1985/6; Charlotte's post pointing out that we may record all 3 months below the 1961-1990 mean interested me and indicates a consistently cold winter. regards A

Fascinating to see the steep temperature gradients for the south east at 9pm: Herstmonceaux [south Sussex]: 9.8c Gatwick: 8.7c (up from 3.8c at 8pm) Kenley [outer south London/surrey border]: 6.6c (up from 3.3c at 8pm) London Weather Centre: 3.9c Heathrow: 3.5c (falling slightly) Northolt [north west London suburbs]: 3.0c Stanstead: 2c High Wycombe: 1.1c Luton 0c regards ACB

An interesting post Richard. Looking at the GFS 12z a CET of about 0.7c looks likely by 14th and even by the 2/3 mark on 19th 0.7c is quite achievable (subject to the usual FI caveats). If that transpires then the likely range for the month end is, say, 1.5c [requiring the last third to record about 2.8c] and 3.5c [about 7.7c for the last third]. My guess now is that a final figure will be perhaps between 2.0c and 2.5c, i.e. sub 3 looking probable. I have to admit that the prospect of a (comfortably) sub 3 month had seemed to me to be very unlikely though not impossible. To beat 1985/6 or 1995/6 requires a February CET of 1.6c: possible but still quite unlikely. You are right to make the point about the effect of the tendency to a southerly tracking jet in the last 18months plus but just as it is too early to dismiss that tendency as a blip it surely follows that it is too early to proclaim with any degree of certainty that a new trend or pattern has been established. Like Reef I would want to see if that trend was discernible over, say, a 10 year period. kind regards Andrew

Re the risk of flooding in parts of the south east it is worth noting that the River Wey at Weybridge is running very high and is almost at bank levels. A combination of heavy rain and a thaw of existing snow makes localised flooding in the area quite likely I think. regards ACB

I think that Paul Sherman's caution is prudent: the chances of snow in the south east early next week are just the wrong side of marginal. A repeat of Friday's pattern of snowfall seems likely at present with, if anything, a more extreme variation in conditions: possibly vast amounts of snow for the Chilterns, for example but little or nothing for most of the region. In the early hours of Friday it was interesting to see snow at Luton and rather more at Milton Keynes where dewpoints were about 0c, but for Stanstead where dewpoints were, for almost all the night, above 0c, rain/icy rain/sleet predominated. Leigh Shrimper: it is a myth (albeit a stubbornly popular myth) that snow cannot settle on wet surfaces. If the snow is sufficiently heavy it will settle on wet surfaces; e.g. here in inner London all surfaces were wet at 5.30am with sleet but half an hour of heavy snow gave a slight but widespread covering by 6.30am. I thought that Maidstone Weather's account of significant localised variations in snow cover were interesting. Travelling by railway from London Vauxhall to Weybridge this afternoon it was notable that from Wimbledon onwards the remaining patches of snow became gradually more numerous and bigger so that by Walton-On-Thames a few roofs still had snow. It was striking to see a significant increase in snow remnants in the 2.5 miles from Walton to Weybridge. regards ACB

Heavens! Its snowing here and setling well on wet ground. Wholly unexpected...definitely 2+ Brixtons. regards ACB

Countless Abingdons , of course, for that (very) young and loud man from Raynes Park who, one might have expected to have been satisfied with his 9"-10" earlier this week [No, don't start telling more fairy stories about 14-19" etc.; no-one will believe you. Its not big, funny or clever to tell such self-serving whoppers]. regards ACB

Gosh what excitement! Heavy sleet from 5.30am here wet snow by 5.50am then nothing. Still tather more than I had expected. Anymore of this and I will award myself a 'Brixton' [see SATSIGS page 9?]. Heaven knows what conditions must be like 600' up on the Chilterns? regards ACB

Going back to Philip's site it appears that at Hampstead the temperature remained below 12c from 25th December 2005 to about 23rd March 2006. regards ACB

One feature that others have raised is the relative lack, so far, of any very mild weather: Philip Eden gives the highest January 2009 maximum for Hampstead as 9.7c. My guess is that from and including 23rd December at least up to and including 12th February Hampstead will not have reached 10c i.e. a continuous period of 52 days. I imagine that over the same period central London will not have reached 12c. Does anyone know how notable (or not) this is? regards ACB

Ossie/SF: Well I was indeed badly wrong as I had 8" (or to be more careful I recorded 8"). I can believe that locally there may have been up to 12" but 19" for Raynes Park sounds ridiculous. Still, I experienced about 4 'Brixtons' of pleasant surprise. Kind regards A

An intersting post: I have had two reports from the Weybridge area of 12" of level snow (one was from my mother; I carefully explained the Stratos Ferric rules on measurement and the danger of falling into error over Kentimetres). regards ACB

Well SF I recorded 8"/20+cm this afternoon which equals February 1991. I have to admit that this far exceeded my expectation on Sunday of 3-4" tops [we are, of course, familiar with the concept of the 'Abingdon' but perhaps there is a place for an SI for expectations that are agreeably exceeded? Then again such an SI would be used only very sparingly...]. I read of NW reports of snowfall in excess of 12" from Croydon which I think is a little doubtful (granted that Croydon, especially on its southern outskirts benefits from altitude; also it seems to have been near the area of heaviest snowfall: even so...). Rather more dubious were the repeated and voiciferous claims of 19" of snow from the outer suburban arctic hell hole of Raynes Park. Kind regards Andrew

Rather more likely is the ludicrous and scientifically illiterate attempt to adduce today's snowfall in Greater London as evidence of 'Global Cooling'. regards ACB

Well what an extraordinary 24 hours...if this sort of thing comes along every 18 years or so I can only realistically expect to experience one more in my lifetime (and I am under 50). Hum ho. regards ACB

From the newspaper that prides itself upon its coverage of environmental matters a typically poorly written article on page 6 today. The article is illustrated by a photograph captioned "The beach at Walberswick, Suffolk, in blizzard conditions yesterday..." The photograph shows no such thing: a man clearly visible some distance away walks near the edge of the sea. The visibility appears reasonably good. There is a light dusting on the foreshore and only a little more on the distant (but clearly visible) sand dunes. There is no evidence of heavy let alone drifting snow. This was certainly not evidence of a 'blizzard'. The strap-line goes onto say "Siberian winds expected to bring the heaviest snowfalls in five years". Elsewhere in the shoddy article we are told: 1. that the snowfalls "could be the heaviest since January 2003"; or 2."February 1991 when 2ft fell" Surely it was perfectly clear long before the article was written that the snowfall was going to exceed the Greater London snowfalls of 2003 which were about 2". Indeed we are told that yesterday evening snow drifts caused delays to travellers to and from Victoria railway station. Furthemore the easterly winds appear to me to be of western Russian origin and not "Siberian". Finally there is the rather strange use of facts to remind us of the snowfalls of 2003 and the separate prediction that this will be the coldest winter "since 1995": 1. January 2003 is described as the time "when motorists were trapped on the M11". This is strange as the problem on the M11 was not caused by 'heavy' snow but the compaction and freezing of about 1" of snow into sheet ice exacerbated by the fact that gritters were unable to grit the M11 as traffic was stationary; 2. The winter of 1995/6 is described as having recorded a temperature of -27.2c in Scotland. This gives the impression that we might face temperatures approaching or comparable to that winter; again there is, of course, no basis provided for this implicit suggestion. Goodness knows what the 'Express' makes of this severe spell! regards ACB

About 20cm+ here or 8". Snow now light and intermittent. regards ACB

17cm here at 7am and still snowing heavily. This may end up as the heaviest snowfall locally since January 1963 if we get to 22cm or so? regards ACB