LRD

We're both right but snow didn't stop play at Lord's I don't think Weatherwatch: freak snow stopped cricket on 2 June 1975 | Extreme weather | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Arctic winds swept across UK, followed by another surprise on 6 June when heatwave struck Weatherwatch- freak snow stopped cricket on 2 June 1975 - Extreme weather - The Guardian.urlhttps://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jun/01/weatherwatch-freak-snow-stopped-cricket-on-2-june-1975

That's not the reality though in recent times. April 2021 was a rare cold April this century. Check out the CET stats for Aprils from 2002 - hardly any below 8c (roughly the average) and only 1 below 7C (2021) 5 have had CETs above 10c this century with loads in the 9s

Aprils have been pretty good in recent years. Even the cold April of 2021 was sunny despite the damaging, unwanted frost

Wasn't that 1975 right at the start of the month? And it was in Buxton I think, which is pretty high up. Stopped a cricket match. That summer ended up very warm. I'm pretty sure there has never been any recorded snow in August in the UK except maybe on the very highest Scottish mountains Sums it up doesn't it? You know the models are awful for winter cold when we're remembering yesteryear GFS ensembles suggest almost anything could happen mid-month Incredible warmth or deep cold? probably end up with 8C and drizzle

Looks good over Svalbard

Hmmm, that doesn't look great to me Iberian and Azores high anomaly which although only faint, will still mean a fairly strong area of high pressure there because pressure is normally quite high there Of course it's not the 'done thing' to write off cold for a whole winter month on here, as folk get piled on if they do that, but it seems the Met Office ARE very close to writing it off (rightly or wrongly) GFS Ensembles look ok beyond the 9th, though

Corrected for you mate

I didn't say it's a new thing. I said it's a pattern that is becoming increasingly dominant and difficult to break once we're in it. Even back in the day, with the prevailing pattern you rightly describe, our winter climate was far more varied (both within single winters and from one winter to the next winter to the next winter...) and that prevailing pattern regularly got disrupted by cold patterns. Far more regularly than the last 30 years anyway (with the exception of the cold run of winters between 2009 and 2013) and especially the last 8 or 9

Well, that's exactly the point that me and others are making. That this type of weather is all too normal and that's the problem, magnified by the fact that it's a pattern that is proving ever more difficult to break once it sets in

Sure and agreed. I had my tongue firmly in my cheek of course but it'd be interesting if it did carry on expanding north. Of course that would take years anyway. And the Hadley Cell, even if climate change mitigations worked and worked quickly, would still take ages to retreat back south. Pretty bleak situation for UK winter cold when we have to rely on an SSW

Indeed. Give it 20-30 years, maybe the Azores cell would have moved so far north it'll reach Iceland and we'll get cold spells by the backdoor!

Agreed It's more depressing that the Alps are struggling too. If they were doing ok at least that would mean there's low pressure in central Europe which would give the UK a half-decent chance at cold. Apart from that, it's completely abnormal that the Alps is struggling for snow at this time of year. Another sign that things are changing and that it might/will become the new normal, which is a sad prospect As for the debate on writing off January, if someone was predicting a month dominated by cold and snow they'd get the likes and attention and whatnot on here, even if using the flimsiest of evidence to back up their argument. But, to be fair to those who are already despondent about next month (me included), recent history is on their/my side. How many times, down the years, have we seen the patterns currently predicted in the models - between Xmas and New Year - for the month of Jan? The answer is a lot, especially since Jan 2014, and guess what - Januarys have been rubbish. Sometimes you can only go off past experience and history and those writing off next month already are probably just using those experiences to shape their thoughts. Which is a reasonable position I know predicting mild (and even writing off a whole winter month or even a whole winter!) in the UK this last 8 or 9 years is easy but it is also usually correct! I don't see the point of trying to convince ourselves that cold is a possibility when the evidence is not there to support that and the professionals aren't seeing anything of note either. If it looks like a pig, smells like a pig, then it is a pig If I see cold in the output, I'll call it. If I see the prospect/risk of 3-4 weeks of mild dross, I'll call that too based on what I'm seeing, reading from those with far more expertise than me and how previous winters have gone. I dunno why people get so offended by that on here (notwithstanding the odd troll and some folk being relentlessly negative for the sake of it, when they should, perhaps, just take a break from this increasingly unrewarding snow-hunting winter hobby of ours for a week or two)

Hope you all had a good Xmas weekend. Not much festive spirit to be found in the weather outlook if it's cold weather you're after. We might be facing yet ANOTHER mild January. As others have said, it is incredible what has happened to our January's over the last 3 decades. Even in a warming world, you'd have expected more than 3 or 4 UK-wide wintry January's in 30+ years Here is the grim 850s ensemble set for London Desperate stuff. Winter-hunting in the UK has become a bit of a tedious hobby. We will get cold spells of course and might even get another spell this winter at some point - it's just going to be increasingly rare and the hunt is now getting less and less rewarding

4, 5 and 6 look good Still noise at this point of, course, but the 2nd half of the EC46 still looks good

Indeed. For completeness, the ECM 850s graph Not quite as bullish as GFS and MOGREPS

Yep. It's still not much cop for my patch but for you and other northern areas there might be some surprises if that pattern verifies. It'll be transient but it's still nice to see snow falling out of the sky

GFS ensembles have gone coolish again by around this time next week. Nowt to get excited about but... MOGREPS too I know it's thin gruel but at least blowtorch mild looks OFF the cards for now

The 2nd one looks like a chicken on a unicycle!

Yeah, nicely put. Perhaps it's a good research subject for a budding meteorologist/climatologist (something I wished I had followed when I was young but Geography was a poor subject for me, based purely on the extremely dull elements of Geography that my school concentrated on. I didn't give a flying one about arable farming in the UK both in the present and down the years) The inflated Azores High/Hadley Cell thing is definitely an issue across the globe, especially in places downstream of a massive ocean. I don't know much about Seattle's and Vancouver's winters of recent years but I bet they're plagued with mild, wet weather quite frequently in winter too. I recall the Vancouver Winter Olympics being held in remarkably mild conditions in Feb 2010

I'm not sure it's as straightforward as East-US/Canada cold = NW European warmth and vice-versa. Or maybe, with the changing climate, it now is? There are better people than me on here to pose/answer that question. But in the past, the Eastern Seaboard in North America has been in the freezer along with Europe including NW Europe and the UK People often cite the Feb 1991 spell in this country when, at the same time, there was a 'heatwave' on the East Cost of America but that wasn't typical

I don't think one winter storm in Canada/US has scuppered things, as such. It's the fact the longwave pattern is not set up in a way conducive to NW Europe cold. If it was that storm either wouldn't have existed or would have behaved in a different way - going directly northwards up the west coast of Greenland for example In a way long range models have called the season correctly so far. Front-loaded cold, mild (without an SSW) thereafter. The trouble is we were hoping for a more extended period of cold. If the cold had hung around to, say, 10th, 12th, 15th Jan - that sort of timescale - and everyone had got a good dollop of snow, most of us would have been shouting bravo to the models which predicted a winter of 2 halves But it isn't one winter storm over in Canada/US, which has brought an abrupt end to the cold. The broad scale pattern was not set up to do that in the end. I do not believe one event is capable of knocking everything else over if the overall pattern is conducive. But I get what you're saying - if medium/long range models can't detect a collapse in the pattern, then what's the point? There is no way I'd raise any of my cold winter hopes based on the longer range stuff As for what-is-the-point of long range models - it's human nature to want to better develop understanding of the world around us (and also off this planet), surely? There will be long periods where it feels like science/knowledge isn't progressing but, surely, we should still strive to continue our understanding of things? I get as frustrated with short, medium and long range models as anyone but I still think they should be invested in and improved based on our improving scientific knowledge and computer power There's understandable frustration because we're settling in to a long period of normal, bland UK 'winter' weather (which is usually a cooler version of autumn weather these days). But if we turn our frustration on modelling and weather/climate science, then we turn into that episode of the Simpsons (when it was still funny) where Springfield's answer to the risk of a comet destroying them was to 'burn down the observatory to make sure it doesn't happen again'. It'll be interesting to see where EC46 lands tonight? If it's completely flipped then criticism is valid (criticism of these models is valid, anyway) but that doesn't mean we should stop striving to improve these models along with our knowledge. But IF it doesn't flip and IF it still shows a mid-Jan classic and IF that verifies, then everyone will be praising the model and pay more attention to it even though it won't get it right all the time. The EC46, IIRC, did get a lot right this summer with some predicted extreme warmth from the model Have a good festive break everyone

850's-wise, the ECM op was representative despite being one of the colder runs on the 27th and 28th Intrigued as to what the Met Office are seeing. If it wasn't for their last couple of updates, I'd be taking a break from this hobby for a fortnight. If the Met Office flip to a milder outlook, that will probably be me until 2023

Like any longer range model, it will have weaknesses but EC46 is usually ok at predicting 1 or 2 weeks ahead. Next week is week 2 of course. Obviously, it'll get less accurate the longer we try and look out to If the low pressure to the north and NW and high pressure to the south regime, that has been well advertised throughout today by most models, verifies then we can say that EC46 has failed at week 2. Of course by Thursday the EC46 forecast might completely change

ECM 240 and back to the familiar, old winter pattern we all know and 'love' This is what ECM's extended was predicting only 23 hours ago for next week Assuming the ECM and other trends for next week are correct, at least EC46 is half right I s'pse - it's got the SE height anomaly correct

The model output gets worse while the Met Office updates continue to sound positive (for cold) GLOSEA must be seeing something I assume