Dark Horse

Before then Tuesday still looks interesting. Have to laugh on the model thread how people are always looking for a breakdown in the cold.......before the cold even arrives. It's not often we get proper cold in March so people need to chill and they will do quite literally

Jan-Feb 2013 was very good here with more of a direct E wind. After mid January had 15cm and had more in the February but not as heavy, a couple of 5cm falls. March though and the wind veered SE which is a terrible direction for some reason.

You seem to have a selective memory because parts of Cheshire did really well in January for snow. I'm not going mad because I saw pictures of it on this very thread by some members Whilst other areas of the region that usually do get it more frequently like here did not. Not getting at you but you only come in here when there isn't actually any snow currently on the ground. You disappear when there is

End of March I start to look for milder stuff and that's usually when convection starts but I'll take next week.... hopefully some of the white stuff is involved! What a chart this is that illustrates perfectly the battle of winter and spring right over the UK after mid month. Wintry in the north spring arrives into the far south.

True but they weren't long lasting cold spells just short bursts of cold. Especially when you compare them to the ones in 2008-2013. Nationwide the latter ones were far more widespread and longer lasting imo.

I think it can be argued that because we haven't had a Winter like 62-63 since, then it was probably the mid 60's when the milder change slowly started. Because there was plenty of unusally snowless years in the early to mid 70's and it was only later in the decade it turned colder. Which carried on until the mid 80s then from late 1987 it turned milder before turning colder again early 90's to mid 90's. Then we had that long relatively milder spell from about 1997 until 2008 (longest mild spell). And colder again from late 2008 through into spring 2013. I have noticed that colder winters often mean colder summers beforehand, not always but there seems to be a bit of a pattern there. Mid 80's were cool summers but had cold snowy winters. My mum said it never stopped raining in the summer of 1985 after I was born in the June and she had the gas fire on early in the month just before I was born, had 3 terrible summer on the trot. We had similar cool and or wet summers between 2008-2012 but again cold snowy winters afterwards.

Very good ensembles. Not far off as good as you can get for March really. And there's some perturbations keeping the cold going mid month!

Yes similar here but my comment was about 2016. I guess you misread my post.

STUNNING ecm. Tuesday looking snowy to be honest and potential for more in the days following! Looks quite an unstable flow. Tuesday reminds me a bit of March 5th 2016 when we had 10cm with a low that tracked down the east coast. Dragged in plenty of snow showers from off the N sea over the Pennines in an otherwise poor winter. Synoptically speaking that was actually less cold, -5C uppers but it brought the goods due to the sea being at it's coldest now. We are in the game this year even more so.

Another damp day with showers on and off from the east. Still looks good to me from Sunday onwards, no downgardes as far as I can see, might not be a mega long fortnight cold spell like we had in December given we are in March now but there should hopefully be more snow around this time compared to back then.

Oh to experience that again and seeing the snow whipping and blowing off roofs and surfaces wow. It's been a bit underwhelming since to say the least but it's not every year (or every decade even!) that we get truly frigid -15c uppers over us.

Cold gets in a bit earlier on the UKMO. Very promising signs now given it's less than a week away. If you have already put out some tender potted plants ready for spring I'd bring them in on Saturday as they might not survive what could be coming afterward.

Met office long range update looking

Managed a bit more sun than was forecast thankfully. Nothing worse than dullness with nothing else going on. Fairly chilly in the light breeze though. Nearly finished my next batch of rice wine making, been doing it for about 10 years on and off, very simple to do just a bit of time and commitment involved. ABV at around 20% so won't get you as sloshed as vodka @ 40% but about as strong as Port. Now have a bit more customers since Hong Kongers started to move to the UK in the last year. But I also keep some for myself.

All is forgiven if that happens! A good dumping of snow then hopefully temps in the mid teens later in the month to lower the gas bill.

The dry spell goes on ......very little in the way of precipitation.

Yeah I've almost given up now on anything noteworthy. I'm an optimistic person by heart but time is running out unfortunately. Apart from the December freeze it's been crap. Sign of the times and no doubt we're in for a roasting summer oh the joy. But with a lack of thunderstorms again. They're my only weather interest in summer and can't even get those nowadays. I remember the days when they'd track south to north giving a fantastic display especially at night. Or suddenly develop by day over land after a few hot days you'd see the towers build up and everything go bang.

Nothing particularily cold on the horizon with the ensembles, mid to high single figures isn't noteworthy, chilly but not that cold. As usual the deepest realms of fantasy island brings bitter cold on the craziest pertubations but it's getting it into the reliable that's often the problem. Always 10 days away.

14c is highly unlikely to be correct. It never got higher than 8c at the airport today as seen below. Have a bit of a chilly air mass over us at present with negative dew points as well. After tomorrow colder still with more of a NE wind influence. https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/weather/current/EGCC.html

First UV of 2 tomorrow, 3 weeks after this and it'll move up to 3 and is then classed as "moderate". We're tilting more towards the sun now.

Ok I've cherry picked charts from the coldest ensemble pertubation and highly unlikely to happen but wow if that came off we'd be sub zero all day even in March.

Doesn't seem to take much dry weather for things to down though, had a few weeks now of it. A big rising population doesn't help either. Everyone uses water. We don't have the infrastructure to cope with demand it would seem.

Well let's hope we don't have a very dry year again, reservoir levels are already below normal and lower than this time last year as seen on my link and this is an old update from the 12th, it gets updated tomorrow but I'd expect levels to have dropped alot. Before the wet Autumn last year reservoir levels was well below normal. I often went to Saddleworth and Dovestones was worryingly low in September which supplies most of Tameside. Other parts of Manchester are served by the ones in the Lake District. Reservoir levels | United Utilities WWW.UNITEDUTILITIES.COM Details about the levels of water in our main reservoirs - updated weekly

Let's hope so being a couple of weeks away, hopefully it's not yet another dangled carrot in the distance never to come any closer... but a northerly unless there's embedded troughs (rare) is usually dry as bone for our region. But I'd rather have that than wind and rain any day. Very snowy for northern facing areas of the UK though. Best set up for the Cairngorms in particular. Might be a good time to book a hotel in Aviemore for a couple of days!

Can't see a 2018 repeat on the way, more like a Least from the east rather than a beast . Unfortunately it is what it is. And if I'm being quite honest once we get through most of March I'm looking for some warmth and not having to put the heating on or still wear layers out and about. If the effects of the long (very very very long) awaited SSW arrives well into March then it's a little too late imo. I'll take snow anytime though, my love of it will never die but once the days become longer than the nights, which is from the 18th March here then I'm usually into Spring mode and we are then into the lighter half of the year from then on. The 2 week bitter cold spell in late November and early December was great with the coldest December since 2010 but apart from that it's not been a classic Winter overall. Jan and Feb have been very boring indeed.