Summer of 95

Warm anticyclonic April usually means cold wet dull rubbish arriving just in time for summer (1987, 2007, 2011). Wet cold April can go either way (1989 vs 2012). It's the topsy turvy Aprils that seem most likely to lead to good summers (1995, 2003, 2006).

Just poke my head out side and what's that? Stars! Forgotten what they looked like. Looked like there are some holes in the gunk coming up from the south, going by the satellite...

Horrid featureless grey muck again, still the same temperatures, it's only varied by 2C in the last 4 days. Anything's better than this, except maybe more marginal snow events that don't deliver.

3-5C day and night with constant cloud, I'd rather have last Feb than this. At least there was some interesting stuff then even if it was the wrong interesting stuff. This current weather is no good for anything or anyone...

March 1996 had a snowy spell around 11-13th here, and some nice sunny, frosty weather right at the end. But I will admit it had at least 20 days of the most awful rubbish- constantly grey with temperatures just above freezing, but rarely frosty at night. It ended up colder than average without being exceptional. Until that spell right at the end it was on course to be the dullest ever. But because of those two spells above it wasn't the worst spring month ever. A really tedious spring month was April 2001. It was constantly cold, quite dull and unsettled but never cold enough for snow, or stormy or thundery. For about 3 weeks it had temperatures of about 7-8C with a really pesky northerly wind, but it didn't have much frost. That year we didn't reach 15C until May.

It was completely unwintry, but then so was February 2011. 2001-2 was another, that was actually quite a cold winter until it suddenly changed in mid January. I'd put that above this year too, the cold around New Year was similar to that of 96/7. I like to note the number of days with snow lying at 1200 as well as 0900, as that weeds out a lot of the snow that melts quickly in the morning. So far it's just one for 2014/15 (4 at 0900), compared to 5(7) for 2001/2 and 10(12) for 1996/7, and 4(6) for 1994/5. The one most similar is 2004/5, which had figures of 5 at 0900 but only 1 at 1200.

Fog has actually thinned a lot now, to the extent that stars are visible. Temp has started to fall too, maybe get a frost after all.

Fog descended at 4pm here, now about 150m visibility. But temperature is still stuck at 2C and seems reluctant to fall, it only reached 4C in the sunshine.

I'm sure there are exaggerations in many cases, but the distance between recording stations does mean local heavier falls might not be noticed in the official records. I've downloaded a lot of Metoffice Snow Surveys from the 80s and early 90s and the West Midlands is not well covered. There is Shawbury and Hednesford (the latter over 200m) but nothing in between. Nothing south from here until Longtown west of Hereford and Martley in the Malverns, nothing north until Northwich. Derbyshire on the other hand has loads of stations. The depths from Shawbury don't match my memories. It says 2cm on 20 Nov 1988 and there was definitely more than that in Bayston Hill (just south of Shrewsbury). I remember sledging that day and it was proper sledging snow, the type that leaves white paths down the hill. And it came well over my toes. 2cm isn't enough for either. Also Feb 1991 says 7cm, I have a picture from then and it was similar to Dec 2010 (15cm). In the 1989-90 report it even mentions a fall of 5cm in Shrewsbury in December yet the tables show nothing at Shawbury. Hednesford often shows big depths, but it's much higher than Stafford or Birmingham so is not accurate for those places either.

I'm surprised it ranks above some of those winters, I wouldn't rate it any higher than 1994-5 (which actually had a couple of ice days before Christmas). Certainly nowhere near 1996-7 which had 10 days of snow cover around New Year or 2000-1 which hit -10 in late December. That index really does show how awful 2013-14 was though, not even half as good as 1988-9!

I'm at almost exactly the same height too. But here is higher than most of the surrounding area, with a drop down to the river about a mile to the west and down towards town to the south. I wonder if that dip in temperature after 9am was due to cold air rising out of the valleys?

You are in a different world down there it seems- only just touched 0C here and that was after 9am, hovered around 1-2 all night. Still foggy now. The pressure is now over 1040 for the first time since??? And still we can't manage either a frost or any sunshine.

Was a lovely clear frosty night, now some horrid dirty muck has appeared from somewhere and sent the temp back up. Please don't say we're going to be stuck with this for days....

I seem to remember Shrewsbury had about 10-15, but north of here there was much less. I think Cheshire/Manchester had nothing at all or very little. It was a standard late 80s/early 90s snowfall here, but it was a complete surprise.

First 5pm sunset was Wednesday here, now it takes till March 8th to get it to 6pm. When the clocks go back in October it's before 6pm on BST. The day before they go forward sunrise here is 5.56 am and sunset 6.33 pm. What a waste of daylight we have in late Feb and March.

If this high is going to stick around, I just hope it doesn't fill with gunk after 2 days as most highs have done since 2013. Those ones in September were particularly bad for this, as we're last April's. Nothing worse than anticyclonic gloom, except rain that should be snow.

It's still around, now it's just above the star Almach in Andromeda. A bit fainter now than a couple of weeks ago (when it was a definite naked eye object) but still a nice sight in binoculars. Looks remarkably like a bright globular. In fact it resembles objects like M3, M15, M2 and M13 so much that I now understand why Messier made a list of such objects.

The last two winters have persistently seen a pattern of perfectly clear nights somehow failing to drop below freezing. Or if they do, it's either down to freezing by midnight only to rise in the small hours, or dip to -0.5 for an hour just before dawn. For all the snow and cold days, 2012/13 was notably poor for really cold nights as well. Lots of -1s and 2s but very few any colder. January had 10 consecutive days of snowcover yet couldn't even manage a -5.

All rain with a bit of small hail here. Temp was 0C and it rained. Everywhere else seemed to get snow.The day it snowed in Rome was actually the following Saturday 11th, rained here then too.

Nothing lower than -4 here since March 2013. Even the most rubbish 90s years all managed a -5 or two.

Only 10 degrees south of us after all. Reminds me of that episode in Feb 2012 when it snowed in Rome and rained here...

The frost has actually disappeared as a dirty blanket of cloud has come from somewhere, quite unforecast. No snow or any precipitation, just dirty gunk. Another fail in this cold spell...

I was born in 1979 and the first winter I remember not having any snow was 1991/2. All of them in the 80s did, both in South Wales where I was until 1987 and in Shrewsbury thereafter. 87-88 had quite a good fall in Jan that I remember. 88-89 had that surprise on November 20th (though I admit I can't remember any in the "winter" months), even 89-90 I remember having a couple of snowfalls although they each only lasted a day or two. There was one I think in mid December that gave about 3 inches. Then after 90-91 it went downhill, 1991/2 and 1992/3 were practically snowless, with the next decent fall in February 1994. It recovered somewhat in the mid 90s, but the nadir for snow was the late 90s. I never saw more than 2cm of snow between Jan 1997 and March 2001, with 1998/99 and particularly 1999/00 being virtually devoid of anything wintry. Someone born here about 1997 would have been around 9-10 before they saw anything resembling the snow I used to see every year.

Maybe that's why we don't get much interesting weather, none of those roads get near here. Just the tedious slow A49. No wonder the weather prefers to take the motorway- and thunderstorms really do, they go north up to Bristol or Gloucester then turn northeast to Birmingham all the time.

Another balmy day, or would be if it wasnt for the wind. Sun out and lots of blue sky. Certainly not cold. Well Im supposed to be going to Cornwall in a couple of weeks and starting to seriously believe I'm more likely to see a decent snowfall there than here. The West Mids has a curse on it this winter.