smich

What a ride this is! The GFS has backtracked on it's backtrack, and if the 18z continues the trend.... ...then again, the 12z could be a massively cold outlier! Who knows what will happen next??! smich

I agree, TEITS, I think that cold 850 air over Europe is looking very solid (!). If that LP continues to trend further S in later runs, it will nudge the surface HP over Scandi and voila! Still a long way out and it will go t!ts up in FI for a few runs yet...but the potential is definately there. smich

Well done Coffee! Special thanks to OON, who ensured I wasn't last outright, with a late vote - against his better judgement! smich

Regardless of the final result, I'm dead chuffed to have made the final at my first attempt. Having looked at the entries in this and previous months, I knew how high the standard was. Thanks to everyone who voted for my pic, and Good Luck to all the finalists! smich

Perhaps we should start a "Damage Reports" thread! I've lost my chimney stack (and numerous roof tiles) :lol: smich

Hi PB, The main reason for the lack of snow last week was the High Pressure over Europe, I guess, although you'd normally expect clear skies and cold temps with that scenario. Depends on where the HP actually sits. One thing to bear in mind is that clouds are essentially moisture, and if you a cloud high up in the cold mountains, then that moisture will will be frozen ie. snow. Thurs night in 3 valleys last week had some cloud pass over in the small hours and 2 cms of fresh appeared on top of the groomed snow that the piste bashers had just prepared. Lower down, nothing, not even rain. Had some great weather last week actually - Mon/Tues had flat clouds down in the valleys, like a lake, Fri am we saw a fogbow and the clouds coming and going that day were quite eerie at times. smich

As has been said, there has to be a winner, but well done to all the finalists. Fantastic photos all of them. Congrats to CC smich

Hi everyone, Just got back from a week in Courchevel, so I thought I would report on the conditions! The snowpack is holding up very well, considering the spring like conditions. We had an amazing +7 deg at Saulire (2700m) on Thursday (a Temp inversion meant we had +3 at 1850m! ) The lower slopes are quite slushy, but some snow making has been possible so things aren't too bad. Sadly when the snow has thawed and refrozen it's never quite the same again, so some new snow will be needed soon the freshen things up. My advice is to stay as high as you can - the snow up at the higher altitudes is fine. As for my holiday - fan-flippin'-tastic is all I can say. Fantastic conditions early in the week, and my only issue was a hire ski that started to fall apart while I was right over the other side of the three valleys on Orelle side. First one edge came away at the back - not a problem really, just use it as my uphill edge. But then the other side started to come away too Made it back safely though! Happy skiing peeps - I'm gutted to be home. smich

I'm off to Courcheval on Saturday and was really starting to sweat! Webcams look great this morning thank god - hopefully 50cms of fresh, which should packdown nicely. Get to work you pistebashers! smich

Thanks Flagpole To be honest I could have taken hundreds of pics of the sun coming thru the fog and trees that afternoon. Really beautiful... and with the ice everywhere, very Christmassy! smich

It's time I entered a couple. Had a lovely walk in Hampshire on Wednesday - got these two nice shots of the fog... Good luck everyone smich

Things are looking a bit bleak for me now :unsure: Courchevel is just about open, but I'll have to head off to Val Thorens for the good stuff I reckon. Looking forward to seeing the "4th Valley" over at Orelle, last time I was there, it was just two runs... Fingers crossed for a good dump first week of Jan, or it's nasty rock hard pistes for me - bwahhhhh! smich

Super collection. Here are my 5 picks: drgl 1 Kelly F 3 rustynailer 3 MCT 2 Blackie 2 smich

Hi Snowman, good idea for athread for the skibums! If you haven't been to Alpe D'Huez before, check out the Sarenne Glacier run over the back of Pic Blanc. It's not always open early in the season, but if it is...it's one those runs that goes on forever! I'm off to Courchevel on 6th Jan, and I must admit I'm getting worried. One year, 1990 I think at Les Deux Alpes, it was just awful. Brown grass all the way down into the valley, straw being laid out on the upper runs to try to keep them together. Only the glacier was worth a look - the chair lift there had queues all day smich

Another good way to follow the jet, if you're too lazy to load up charts, is to look at the 552 dam line (the thick one) on the 500hpa charts. It's uncanny how the jet seems to follow that contour at the mo... :lol: smich

Interesting to see another solid Greenland High appear in FI today on GFS. I remember last winter, waiting and waiting for Greenland to turn yellow! Didn't happen til the end of Feb then, but we've already had decent height rises recently, and if the cycle can repeat (despite being inhibited by European blocking) we'll be in for a cold winter. The very cold temps in Greenland will maybe have assisted the situation in terms of high pressure? I'm hoping to see that "heart shaped high" in the middle of Jan this winter! smich

So where's the latest report then???!!! Good to see this thread resurrected, Carinthian smich

What amazes my untrained eye about that SST chart is how anomalously warm the NH is, and how anomalously cold the SH is. Also, the El Nino anomaly looks rather pathetic compared to the western atlantic :blush: smich

"Devon Oscillation"???!!! LOL Oh Tamara, wot r u like?!!! These Met Office forecasts always hedge their bets and I don't blame them one little bit. As mentioned earlier in this thread, it's not a question of accuracy (or not), but an illustration of the difficulty, especially so far out. Christ, look at the difficulties a supercomputer or two are currently having beyond, say, T120h...add a couple of simple humanoids to the forecasting mix and it's...well...it's a cagey forecast! Smich

There was a helluva lot of Saharan dust over the E atlantic for long periods this season, which would have inhibited H/cane formation. Not sure why this was though! smich

But shouldn't all these CET stats be scaring the pants off us?! This summer, just using the NW tracker figures we have: June +2.7c July +3.5c Sept +2.8c Oct +2.5c ...above average. These are ridiculous anomalies really, August wasn't even that bad (especially given the synoptics). I'd always thought 2.0c above average over the course of a whole month was extreme, but that must be old school thinking I guess! Smich

I too have this little "gem"! (sorry) It's main advantage is that it's so portable! If you like clouds, "The Cloudspotters Guide" by Gavin Pretor-Pinney has had a lot of media coverage and is a quite comprehensive guide to observing real weather. Good luck with your observations! Smich

Great debate on this thread. This GLOBAL warming issue continues to be discussed here purely in relation to our local "corner" of the earth. But as a worldwide issue, it's implications are immense - and complicated. Far beyond the logical "equator becomes unbearable/Spain becomes Sahara/as does France/ Britain resembles Spain/ Scandinavia resembles UK/ Arctic melts etc. outcome. The mechanisms don't just include the atmosphere of course, but not just SST's either - salination issues must be included along with ground temps, the solar cycles, etc etc I could on... ...actually I am! But Steve is right, it's all too easy to say that certain synoptics and weather are less likely to happen because of GW. But there are too many other factors (with hitherto unforeseen consequences) to consider before Cold Lovers here need to write off winter! Smich

Yes GW, the large system crossing N of Cape Verde Islands? Looks impressive, and if it steers N, could well give us something to take notice of. Elsewhere, FNMOC has 97L, a very small disturbance just E of the Carribean sea. Certainly not much to look at, but it looks like it's starting to spin, and the sea must be very warm there (having not been churned by any Hurricanes yet!)... Smich

Paul, I'm an infrequent poster here these days (and an even more inexperienced forecaster for that matter) but I'm stung into action by this thread! Your enthusiasm for the subject is to your credit and I don't think you deserve some of the posts aimed at you here. Personally, I think anything approaching 70% accuracy would persuade me to reach for my last £100 million if it could be proven accurate. But the odds can get so long in this game. What if I offered you 100/1 that 2 of the last 3 months would exceed the CET average by THREE DEGREES!!!!It would have been a no-brainer, and it could happen! IMHO, LRForecasting will improve enormously in the next few years, but whether the definitive measurements of GW over the last few years will contribute to that I'm not so sure. It's new territory. Teleconnections and SSTs will be the benchmark data for the timebeing, I think, for better or worse. In any case big up yerself for (albeit inadvertantly?) provoking this debate! Smich