BruenSryan

It was an amazing Winter considering its time - a long period of largely forgettable or mild Winters from 1997 to 2008. The end of February and early March brought severely cold weather including the March record low maximum before 2018 (and one of the few Marches to reach a minimum of -20c in the UK). There was a blizzard on February 27th for parts including here in the east of Ireland. January was frosty. There was the snowy and cold spell at the end of December which you mentioned. I was only 1 month old in December 2000 so can only go off of stats.

Not sure about the last time so to speak but here's the records for each date of October in the UK:

No comparison there here in Dublin, December 2010 was colder and snowier, got down to Dublin's all time (since known records began at Phoenix Park in the 1830s I think it was) low of -15c on Christmas Day - perfect timing. Constant streamers most days, I remember every single day like yesterday. Woke up on the morning of November 27th 2010 to find my garden and neighbourhood with snow everywhere and blue skies. It was wonderfully perfect. The next day was the exact same and Dublin got down to its lowest November temperatures on record (so did Ireland at -11.5c beating 1919's long standing record of -11.1c). Further streamers occurred on November 29th to December 2nd. November 30th particularly stands out to me as a completely overcast day with consistent snow falling. I was in school and was sent home early then my school closed for the week. The snow stopped for a few days then came back on the 7th as a cold front reintroduced bitterly cold air (after a relatively milder but still very cold weekend of the 4th/5th) and had a severe frost on the 8th with blue skies. The milder period then came but the second freeze occurred bringing record breaking low temperatures again completely smashing previous records for Dublin and Ireland. I had streamers coming off the Irish Sea on the 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd. It didn't seem as amazing to me at the time as the first spell at the end of November (which is still my preferred one out of the two to this day) as I was probably just used to it by that stage. How stupid was I to take it all for granted.

He put it as 5th best, not #1 best. December 2001 was the sunniest on record. Mine: Best 2010-11: No other competition comes even close to this. Among the sunniest on record, even February was sunny here compared to many. -10c was achieved on more than 5 days through December in Ireland, same with ice days including Ireland's record low max temperature for any month of -9.8c on the 21st. The December record low for Ireland was smashed quite a few times from -14.8c on Dec 13 1961 to -17.5c on Dec 25 2010. January had a lot of frost too and was another sunny month. Easily the best and such a nostalgic Winter to me that was followed by my favourite Spring I've experienced too - 2011. Worst 2012-13: Quite a controversial opinion of mine. A lot of frustration this Winter with me missing out on not only the March snowfalls largely, also the January snowfalls. It was just a damp and unremarkably cool season that I wish I could forget and erase from my memories.

Much prefer Summer 2016 over Summer 2017 although 2016 had its big issues too, namely the sunshine. Whilst I had a large number of 20c+ days in 2016, there was rarely a sunny day due to persistent humid southwesterlies. The second half of August improved on the sunshine though here.

Absolutely rubbish even as early as late June here in eastern Ireland though some people suggest it got bad only from mid-July onwards. Late June was cold and wet following a notable warm/hot spell from the 17th-21st then the first half of July was very cloudy here with relatively warm temperatures. The second half of July was wetter and cooler but far superior in terms of sunshine. August was extremely disappointing, little to no warmth, unremarkably cool temperatures, average rain, little sun, yuck. I dislike Summer 2017 if you could not tell. I prefer Summer 2015 over it for crying out loud and that's saying something because I loathe July 2015.....

Provisionally, September 2018 recorded 115% of the average sunshine for England with 158.2 hours of sunshine so does not fall into the top 10 as shown above. @BlueSkies_do_I_see https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2018/10/01/september-statistics/

I am only young so the only "classic" Summers that I've experience are 2003, 2006, 2013 and 2018. I can't remember 2003 as I was only two years of age. 2006 I remember very vividly and it felt like endless heat or sunshine whilst on holidays in a mobile. July 2006 was my favourite Summer month I have experienced so far. 2013 I found alright, July was stunning but don't know, something just makes it not a favourite of mine for some reason; I preferred July 2014 over July 2013, maybe because I did more in 2014. Summer 2018 until August was easily my favourite because of the almost constant sunshine (June 2018 was Dublin's third sunniest June on record and one of the sunniest months on record) and perfect feel to the weather. It never got too warm here because of the sea breezes I had. Therefore, it was absolutely perfect..... until August came in like the usual damp squib it is. August wasn't terrible like 2011 but it was extremely boring; little rain, little sun, no remarkable temperatures after the first week here. This was one of my favourite pictures I took during this Summer at Howth Head on 30th June. May to July was probably among the best you could find in this country though for this part of Ireland, it was slightly beaten by 1989 going by the stats due to July 1989 being sunnier and warmer than July 2018 here.

Meanwhile, this was my area on 2 March and Kildare on the same day. The east of Ireland was spoiled for snow during that spell. Could have shared with a lot of people and still have a good dusting. What you described sounds like March 2013 here.

Kind of a combination of both along with the fact it was so dull. The maximum daily sunshine I had throughout the entire month was only 6 hours which was a new record low for Dublin (using Dublin Airport records). March is a time of year when I hope for calm, Spring days with good sunny spells and severe frost overnight (2010 and 2011 were perfect examples here). March 2013 was just persistently cold, wet, dull, awful mess. I was really unlucky in terms of the snow; I barely got anything in January 2013 either. March 2018 gave me A LOT of snow though.

They have not released (provisional) stats yet for September. You can view the sunniest Septembers on record (back to 1929) for different regions of the UK here: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets Here's a table I did of Heathrow, UK and England's top 10 sunniest Septembers.

March 2013.... no other competition even comes close to that for me.

Don't have 5 on each side but my favourites and least favourite: Favourites 2011 - Lots of sunshine and lots of warmth. March was one of the sunniest on record and April was the warmest on record. 2010 - Like 2011 lots of sunshine with many nights of severe frosts. Long dry spells in early March and mid-April. A very warm spell near late May which contained my warmest May day on record. Least favourite 2013 - Cold, dull and wet. Yuck! Worst season of my life and I particularly loathe March. All the rest are pretty mediocre for Springs as a whole - individual months like May 2017 were stunning though. Spring 2018 belongs in the interesting category for me than favourite.

The JMA is not ideal for delivering cold to the UK and Ireland. Looks like a knife edge to me between a 2009-10 or a 2013-14, closer to a 2013-14 type scenario of all the cold being delivered to North America.

QBO vs CET for every Winter from 1949-50 to 2017-18. Easterly QBO years relatively favour colder Winters especially to severe levels but notice 1978-79 had very weak westerly QBO. Late 2010 had quite strong westerly QBO too.

I wonder who that was. Nice to see you read my posts on other sources Sundog! But seriously, a mad update from the ECM (I thought last month's was epic enough for cold and snow!) with a lot of blocking especially during December and January on this September update. I'd like to point out a comparison between the ECM update of November 2017 (from Gav's Weather vid) for Winter 2017-18 vs what actually happened. Uncanny resemblance here. Displaced Azores High. Troughing through UK/Ireland into Europe. Blocking to the north and northeast of Europe. You'll never get a complete perfect match but I think this was amazing for a long range forecast. Will see how the ECM fares this Winter. Weak Polar Vortex as suggested by the CFS and its ensembles would suggest the possibility of what the latest ECM long range update shows.

2002 was and still is the wettest year on record in Dublin with scenes like below (taken on 1 February 2002 when strong winds and heavy rain coincided with a high tide) in February and November 2002. Other than that, it just seemed like a dull and mild fest, little cold. Yuck!

A repeat of Autumn 2010 in every way from an unremarkable, wet and sunny September to a relatively cool but very sunny October with some notable frosts to a beauty of a November that contains a severe cold and snowy end. Or a 1919.

Sorry to be slightly off topic but where did you get this from by any chance (or the ensemble data)? It would be very appreciative, thanks.

If El Nino even occurs. El Nino Modoki would be good though.

Thing that's holding it back if you ask me is the Atlantic sea surface temperatures.

Spring 2013 was my most hated season, I'd rather not remember it. As I mentioned in another thread, I got barely any snow. I didn't reach 10c throughout March, it was just consistently cold and awful with dull cloudy skies and during the Northern Ireland blizzard on the 22nd, I just got heavy rain. My luck was not there for early 2013, disaster after disaster.

The theory (better coined as hypothesis though) is behind unsettled Septembers, not necessarily cool ones (2010 was unsettled but fairly mild for instance). For the most part, September 2015 was settled in spite of being cool. I think it's coincidence. You'll find lots of exceptions. 1986 was very cool but also dry and was followed by a mixed Winter including a freezing January but December was very wet and mild.

Historically, there aren't many dry and especially warm Septembers followed by cold Winters. Unsettled Septembers are a different story such as 1946, 1962, 1981, 1995 and 2010. Not impossible to have a dry settled September and a cold Winter following though, 2009 was a recent example.

This August has just been perfectly forgettable to me, not exceptionally poor nor really great.