mushymanrob

i dont know enough about aurora patterns to comment on whether or not its fake - looks real to me though.

mind you, in posting that, im not at all suggesting a repeat performance. it just highlights though that similar looking charts do not always lead to similar outcomes. i have no idea why we got a dumping then, and are unlikely to now, clearly there are other factors at play, maybe the low back then had more active fronts... and will get a few miles further north - i dont know.

interesting chart, looks familiar?... not a million miles away from what we are expecting, this chart from today in 1955 produced a real dumping so im told..

i remember that one, me and my new g/f and my youngest son went to a metal detecting rally in north norfolk for the weekend, intending to camp out .... after a bitter day detecting in snow showers we came home! too bloody cold! funny thing is, i was on here watching that wretched freezing spell evolve and ruin the weekend.

fair play!... i hadnt recorded anything over the weekend, so i dont know what we got - but by monday i was working.

thats odd.... friday the 6th was wet , but that was the only day lost to rain... here in derby anyway.

its a beautiful day outdoors! the sun is strong and warm, here we have no breeze so its simply divine! ok im going to pay tonight with a hard frost - but hey ho, ill be in bed!

true, but the ecm in fi had hinted at a beasterly for several weeks. ok, it wasnt consistent and i along with most dismissed it as fi eye candy. in hindsight the ecm had picked up on a signal, but at the time no one foresaw the march that was to come.

im not expecting any showers, maybe a bit of light drizzle, but its cloudy as that upper occlusion straggling us would suggest.

this to my eyes spells a raw, bitter, overcast, day with and precip being confined to the southwest. unlikely to be snow away from higher ground - dartmoor maybe?

because what 'coldies' want IS snow and a decent cold snowy spell like 2013 delivered. those years you quote only had short lived 'nuisance' cold events with some snow for some. i didnt get 3 days of lying snow in 95, checking my work diary i lost no time due to bad weather except before i started (6th 7th i had down as cold wet windy). after then it was business as usual. march 2013 stands out as THE occasion when winter truely carried on into spring - that is not going to happen this year.

yep, i reckon youre getting a rough ride on the md thread. people look at charts and automatically think 'snow showers' , but an easterly can be overcast and dry,. i dont know the dynamics required for heavy snow showers, but looking at an easterly or northeasterly and believing in snow showers are coming is naive. take this chart from january 76, it looks as tastey as any of these current charts - but all we got was dry, overcast, bitterly cold weather - no snow.

yep, this is the reason i dislike late cold weather, not to 'spite' coldies, but because early spring is wonderful outdoors.

saying march will be cold (and the current outputs dont give much hope of warmth into early march) isnt the same as saying march will have a big freeze like 2013. to me, when the outlook is either 'below average' or 'cold' it means just that - cold for the time of year - below average. so we get 6-7c maxs instead of 9-10c , but in any sun and out any breeze itll feel much better at 6c then a breezy overcast 10c. (figures are just examples).

i wasnt singling out you or any one, it was just a general statement. yep, thats fair, but thats not getting excited is it?

the chart shows a weak greenland high (compared to the strong azores high) but the flow between them is still westerly and pretty steady. and ridging between the two highs will be transitory. these charts do not support a strong northern block imho, but troughing to our south which does support an easterly / northeasterly / northerly surface flow. a north easterly of course doesnt mean sunshine and snow showers, it could well bring a stratus-fest, especially for eastern areas - but at least itll be dry. i dont see anything more then a 'normal' cold spell for the time of year. these synoptics would be much more potent a month ago but daylength and sun strength is rising now and it doesnt look to me like a repeat of 2013 - currently at least.

but the facts dont support your idea based on 20 odd years of weather watching? i can more then double that mate, i mentioned the early 70's, and i remember similar rumblings about the lack of snowy winters. there was next to no snow from 71-77 - then the winters of 77-82 proved the concerns were misplaced. mind you regarding convective weather types - i have some sympathy with this - what first got me into weather was thunderstorms. and since september 15th 1973, i, here in derby, have not had one of the super storms that we had annually. true, theres been one or two decent storms, but most are just indistinct areas of grey cloud with 'farty' thunderclaps in them from (the limit of my memory) the mid 60's to 73, storms always tracked up from the south, off france. the sky darkened south of west, southeasterly breeze. you could hear the distant thunder, we could see the baseline, we saw the squall and updrafts creating dramatic cloudforms. we could see the grey base where it rained and the lightning was observed, we got real thunder, real lightning, it was violent and loud. areas to our west got it first, areas to our east last, as it tracked (at an angle) northwards. then it cleared up, the storm passed and the sun came out again. not like these times when we seem to get several days of cool grey cloud after a jaffa cakes poor excuse of a 'storm', in fact i wouldnt describe it as a storm, but every time it thunders is regarded as a 'storm'. i was begining to doubt my memory, untill i witnessed a storm like this in spain.

thatll be me then.... unless theres a real cold spell that WILL bring a dumping of snow. the rest is just hot air (sic). i cannot understand why one should get excited about something that isnt likely to happen. what makes it worse is the never ending moaning by those who were suckered in , believing fi charts, getting all excited like a child at christmas - then moaning when it goes pear shaped. i can see no point in putting yourself through that at all.

cold?... in light winds (by wednesday) itll feel pleasant in the strengthening sun. i dont see much more then a 'normal' cold spell that we get commonly.

of course its not black and white, summers vary in 'decency'

that shouldnt be a surprise, as the noaa 500mb charts has never supported a strong greenland high linking with the azores high. any such ridge was always a transitory feature as the upper flow looks quite strong on the northern flank of a strong azores high.

maybe, but it wouldnt alter the facts.

theres a difference between a hot spell in summer and a hot summer, and since 2009 the south east has had much more decent summers weather then the northwest. imho they dont compare to the true hot summers of 75, 76, 83, 95 etc.. summer 2014 was pretty normal here, nothing special.

actually, im not sure theres even been a 'typical' year. maybe there has Weather-history ?... but they must be few and far between *typical as in snowy, wintry jan/feb, showery april, largely warm/hot summer with thunderstorms and a stormy autumn.

you werent around in the 70's then. it really IS selective memory, i can not recall any run of years ever (since the 60's) where the seasons behave as 'they are expected to'... hot summers, snowy winters, stormy autumns and showery springs have never been any sort of guarantee. theyve come and gone. i mentioned the 70's - the early 70's had almost snowless winters, had 2 hot summers, had springs that varied between very cold and dry (75) and mild / warm (76). then we had the late 70's early 80's when we had plenty of snowy winters and no hot summers. (between 76 - 83) i think its a complete myth that the weather 'used to' behave within the confines we attribute to it regarding seasons.