Typhoon John

6.6C please

Zell am See with the family. I've not been there before so looking forward to trying somewhere new. I think the good thing is you can go up onto the Kaprun Glacier if necessary so we should be able to find some good skiing regardless. But I do like it when it's wintery in the village, back in January I saw on Twitter the lake was frozen enough to walk across the other side.

I am off to Austria in a weeks time. I'm not particularly thrilled by the current modelling which is looking warm and probably a bit Spring like conditions. It's a shame since in late January it was looking pretty good.

4.8c please

3.9c please.

4.6c please

A provisional 5.5C from me

10.7C please.

15.3 please

How is the forecast looking further North around Innsbruck? Seems like that area has just missed out on all the fun being just too far North and West.

I had a walk out myself. Great fun until I ended up on an exposed hill. Ouch! Blowing snow directly in the face isn't fun! But loved it all the same.

The last 90 minutes has been pretty good where I am, admittedly the other side of Durham. Had 3 inches/7cm of new snow when I last checked - had the ruler out before you ask. Even now I think this event has been quite impressive and certainly surpassed my expectations. Heaviest precip probably passed but still some moderate snow for a few more hours and could easy be 10cm of new snow overall by morning. Edit: BTW, I'm in Nevilles Cross not Dalston, 100m asl.

Cold temps and low dew points required for them. Powder snow at it's best. High snow ratios.

Ecm 00z looking better at 120 hours. Low more negatively tilted, pressure higher to the north around iceland, block looking stronger keeping the low a little bit further out West. Its a small step but exactly the type of thing I suggested we'd see happen. Look for further small improvements from the 12z runs tonight.

3.8c please Hopefully I'll remember to enter for every month this year!

I don't think there is any suggestion that the earth itself slows or speeds up, the effect is so small as to make no difference. However, when negative mountain torques occur the momentum is transferred to the atmosphere in the form of waves through the atmosphere that can have a measurable effect on the atmospheric circulation. When these waves reach the stratosphere they can cause warming and reverse the polar flow. That is what is measurable and what we're looking for evidence of in this thread.

Radar shows Durham back to rain but considering the reports, and knowing what the net weather radar is like versus reality, I expect it is still snowing! There'll definitely be a cover come the morning.

From twitter: http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A6Kdc_vCEAAu10m.jpg http://instagram.com/p/RQuTRNsoNm/

I'm not there but my parents are reporting a light cover of snow on the cars and grass in Durham City. asl 100m. I'm in London, sad to be missing out!

16.2c Thanks.

10.5c please

I haven't been following the solar stuff since the minimum was over but the Northern Lights last week piqued my interest again. I was viewing the current curves for sunspots and flux and they seem to be on track to come in quite low. Interestingly, the up slope seems very steep to me. I seem to recall that the way the cycle ramps up dictates how it will wane. With that in mind we could be looking at quite a short period of maximum activity and a long tail off. Does anyone have any thoughts? I've not read much expert opinion on how the cycle is progressing. Also, is SC25 still supposed to be even weaker? Either way, interesting times ahead.

3.0c please

Thanks for all the advice. I cleared some of the clutter on the balcony and put some food out and left it for a while as I think in the end I was just making it more distressed. It eventually noticed the food which seemed to calm it down. Watching it, it seemed to be looking around at where it was instead of panicking. It had another failed attempt to escape and hit the glass and then, after another look around, seemed to work it out and flew up to the railing and towards the nearby trees. So a happy ending.

I've had this before with a racing pigeon which I managed to catch using a towel. Today I've got a young Magpie stuck on my balcony jumping/flying into the glass sides. It's clearly quite distressed and defecating a lot, I can even hear it breathing heavily. I've tried again with the towel technique but firstly I'm struggling to catch it as it's so fast. Then even once I've got the towel over it, it's flapping so much it's managing to free itself before I can pick it up. Only thing I can think of is using a bigger towel, but I've only got one and I need it for myself! Any ideas would be appreciated.