cheeky_monkey

decent charts but not fantastic IMO..lots of dissapating fronts and troughs that wouldnt deliver too much snagged up in the high pressure..lots of areas would be cold and cloudy..but thats about all.

well 2007 followed an el nino event as did 1998...both summers as many will recall were distinctly crap..so does not always follow..mind you 1983 was a great summer following the el nino of 82..as was 2003

you will need a decent amount of snow cover to gain those kind of numbers me thinks..cant see where that will come from before the end of the week away from some very favoured parts.

The GFS 00 Hrs seems to me an improved run with regards to snowfall across the southern half of the UK and espcially a big improvement for the south west..the high never really get too far south before retrograding north again towards the end of the week..allowing small troughs to run across the south..with the potential for a decent channel low pushing in from the south west later to engage the cold..perhaps producing an old style snowfest???

its interesting and i would have thought possible somewhere and some point..i wonder what the coldest week ever recorded in the CET zone actually is???

im not sure this is the case..the sun does not have huge strength in Feb..plus the colder the airmass the less moisture..plus as the sea is colder the less convective showers will be produced than if the sea was warmer..surely the models would pick up on this potential if it were the case??..i always thought these sun driven shower activities occurred in march and april usually with unstable north westly airflows?..maybe im completely wrong?

more of the same from the GFS 00hrs..cold and fairly benign from what i can see right out until next friday/saturday before things become more interesting. From there on in its anyones guess as to where it goes..but again cold throughout the whole run.

well we had groundhog day here the other day..with the groundhogs saying there will be another 6 weeks of winter...interesting enough the definition of spring in Canada is when the the daytime temperatures reach double digits on a consistant basis...and they state this dose not usually happen until mid april..nice and sunny here today and looks like spring..except for the snow and it being -16c!

Is there not a learning section in the forum that you can post all your queries and questions..im sure plenty of people will be willing to answer them to the best of their abilities. anyway the models are still showing a prolonged cold set up right through the period so should be no grumbles there surely?..snow is never easy to predict at the best of times. incidently the huge low sitting in the atlantic is giving Newfoundland a real pasting right now with hurricane force winds blizzards and snow total could exceed 100cm by the end of the weekend.

was reading that it was the warmest January on record in Vancouver...anybody confirm this?

morning its 10pm here..so looking a little drier but still cold on the gfs...becomes a bit messy in the middle of the run as the high retrogresses back to greenland..and becomes a bit of a dogs dinner towards the end.

as i mentioned earlier in the day the correspondence between warm weather across the prairies in Canada and cold in the uk...well the warm spell predicted here that coincided with the cold in the uk has been downgraded today maybe a hint as to why things have changed slightly with the models tonight?

Thanks thats very interesting..as a side issue here environment Canada are projecting the warm spell to be somewhat short lived 3-5 days(although they have been predicting this warm up for a while now) before it becomes colder again...dont know what kind of bearing that will have on the UK??

dont know if this is relevant..but could help somewhat..i have notice of the last 2 winters that cold spells in the uk seem to correspond with mild spells in western canada and the prairies...when it was cold over new year 08/09 and earl Feb 09 it was very mild in these regions...just b4 xmas and the early part of Jan it was mild here in fact it was well above zero when it should be -10c..and again they are predicting a sharp warming with temps above freezing at the same time it is showing the cold spell arriving in the uk...coincidence?

for me this winter does not hold a candle to 1978/79..in fact the only historic fact in my mind is the length of the cold so far...there hasnt been any deep cold..yes there have been some very cold night time temperatures..but we have not seen that biting east wind with day time max struggling to -5c with blowing snow and high windchill..no blizzards or repeated heavy snowfall....and apart from the virtual nationwide snowfall of the 5/6th Jan (a feat in itself)..snow has been fairly sporadic and regionalised....so far this winter is on a par with some of the 1980s winters..but still not up with 1981/2 (not yet) and no where near 1978/9.

you dont get many icebergs in Edmonton..but be interesting to see the ice floes on the river as spring eventually arrives.

now i dont live in the UK anymore..the most fascinating thing about the models..is not the model output itself but peoples reaction and interpretation of those models...my view as being completely impartial these days is that the UK will end up with neither raging mild or cold weather but fall somewhere in no mans land.

was around -15c..today its a milder -7c

would be interesting to see how December and January stack up as individual months rather than as a pair?

can you not have him in a batman outfit with piers corbyn as robin???

Here are some pictures i took today on a wander through downtown Edmonton..if you look closely you can see the river Saskatchwen frozen over in the distance. They were taken on my phone so quality not brilliant.

now i have moved to Canada..i do believe the UK would cope as well as anywhere else during a sustained long spell..simply because it becomes the norm and people do quickly adapt their behaviour to suit after the initial first week or so. When heavy snow and wind occurs here they cope no better than we do during periods of snow..road accidents schools closing people struggling to get to work etc...when it stops they have the equipment to quickly clear the roads and get everything moving again...in fact they tend to moan if they dont get enough snow or it is too mild...you be surprised that they moan about conditions on the road etc just like we do..and it is bizaare when they curse it for being too warm. The whole point is you can get used to anything very quickly and it is easy to forget about the cold and snow..its just there and thats it..life goes on.

because the air masses are alot colder..if its well below freezing it wont melt even if it is sunny for days on end..also uk snow is transient and falls generally when the temperature is around freezing point and doesnt build up over a season..so it melts very easily.

Now that i have been living in Edmonton Canada for the last 3 weeks..i havnt seen any green since before xmas as the thaw hadnt set in when i left the UK. I dont think about the prospects for cold and snow any more..because that is guaranteed as someone said there are no marginal events here..you know its going to be snow that falls from the sky. So i am looking forward to spring here although i tends to start a good 4-6 weeks later than the UK.

Today right now in Edmonton Clear and cold Temp -27c Wind SW 2mph Humidity 66%