mcweather

Crikey you had some intense stuff there Mapantz . We had 17mm between 7am and 9:30am here at Broadmayne So nowhere near as intense as the tea time storm a week ago yesterday when we had 17mm in 25 minutes!

Hi Mapantz. It was a very lively if shortlived storm wasn't it. Gave 17mm in in 25 minutes here at Broadmayne.

No rain here either Mapantz this the umpteenth time this summer that forecast rain has failed to materialise here at Broadmayne. Not that I,m complaining after the winter lol

another inch of rain from 7am yesterday until 7am today here at Broadmayne. Just seen the bbc forecast looks like there could be another inch before 7am tomorrow.

23mm in two hours here at Broadmayne this afternoon.

Yes Frosty The other debt that mother nature will probably also fulfill is to bring a cold and/or snowy episode to the UK in late March or early April this happens surprisingly often after winters that are completely mild. I would say somewhere between March 25th and April 15th at a guess. Meanwhile I hope the models are not leading up the garden path with the progged extended drier spell in the south.

That would appear to be it for winter here in the far south, unless we get a potent wintry blast in the spring ( which often happens after completely mild winters. Final rainfall total for winter at my weather station was 658mm (26.32 inches!!) If one adds in October and November as well the total is 872mm ( 34.88 inches) The 1981-2010 average annual rainfall for Dorset is 924mm ( 36.96 inches) So I have recorded almost a years worth of rain since October 1st 2013.

Thanks for your reply John

Hi John Genuine question Just out of interest how good are the anomaly charts at picking up changes when the atmopsheric situation has been stuck in a rut for weeks on end? Is it possible that once in a blue moon the operational nwp might be quicker to respond to a possible change.

Yes indeed Steve its a pity that the ECM has given us a number of ghost easterlies in the latter timeframes over the last couple of winters, otherwise we could give this a bit more credence. If it gets down to 120 -144 then I might start to raise an eyebrow. Having said that if those uppers did come our way we could end up with the biggest open air ice rink ever seen in the UK..

In view of the current dismal conveyor belt of vile wet and windy muck. Here is the story of a little known but outstanding weather event, that goes to prove that even late feb can produce the goods big time. Much has been written of the great Victorian snowstorms of Jan 1881 March 1891 and the 20th century monsters of April 1908 xmas 1927 and the falls from the severe winters of 1947 and 1963. But I wonder how many forum members know of the the great thunder/snowstorm of Feb 21/22nd 1898. It makes the thundersnow event of Jan 28th 2004 look like little more than a passing flurry. Much of the following has been found in the annals of the Dorset Natural history and Archeological society. The snow on the 21st and 22nd February 1898 attained a maximum depth of more than 2 feet!! in a belt extending across the county west to east from Broadwindsor, Cattistock and Bloxworth to Parkstone (Poole). It commenced on the afternoon of the 21st with the temperature above freezing and fell continuously for 20hours! The snow was accompanied by thunder and lightning on the evening of the 21st but fell with very little if any wind. It was wet and adhesive. At Dorchester waterworks 16 inches of snow yielded 1.44 in of water and at Parkstone the product of 21 inches of snow yielded 1.98 ins. At Burstock a few miles south of Crewkerne the the snow was recorded as two and half feet deep. Observers notes from the time read as follows; Bere Regis Village; The fall of snow ending 22nd feb yielded 1.81 inches of water Burstock: Rain guage under two and half feet of snow! Haselbury Bryan: Feb 21st Snow began to fall about 3;30pm in large flakes, As there was no wind it lay where it fell the snow continued to fall throughout the night until 10:30am on the 22nd The depth in the rectory garden was fully 2 feet. The quantity which feel was probably equal to that of the great fall of March 9th-13th 1891 but then the drifts were very deep. In 1891 it was drifted to 9 feet at the Rectory gate. Much damage was done to evergreens in the garden simply by the the weight of snow much greater damage than in 1891. Parkstone:(Poole) Feb 21st Remarkable snowstorm commencing about 4:30pm and continuing intil 1pm on 22nd. The snow, being wet and lying close and heavy did an enormous amount of damage to to roofs and greenhouses and telegraph wires and shrubs and trees. Wareham: Feb21st-22nd Heavy wet snow causing much damage to the trees, its weight breaking and twisting the branches. snow about a foot in depth accompanied by vivid lightning in the evening of the 21st. Wyke Regis:(Weymouth) Heavy fall of snow, gauge blocked. The synoptic situation was that of a mid Altantic ridge Joining forces with a Greenland high whilst a depression formed off eastern Scotland and moved Southwards across the UK.

I have to agree with you on that Iceni. Unless the Scandi high has something to draw it west like some hieghts over Greenland then it always seems to have the mother of all battles and will 9 times out of ten lose against a decent strength jet stream pushing northeast. I've lost count over the years of promising situations from Scandi that have just been shunted away southeastwards because the scandi high didn't have any quiet space to push westwards into. if you look back at nearly all the easterly cold and snow situations ( the really good ones I mean,) they nearly all had at least some heights over Greenland as well.

mcweather said so far this month I,ve recorded 247mm of rain. Glad to see the crap is being spread around evenly Mapantz

Certainly for the foreseable (7-10 days max) the model consensus seems to be of the Atlantic weather systems holding sway over our weather. That still leaves a decent chunk of February and the first half of March to have a go at. Certainly if we do get a decent cold and snowy spell in the middle or second half of February I think we should call it the Tamara Winter. In honour of she who held her nerve when all around were shredding theirs. Personally having recorded a mind boggling 247mm of rain so far this month I'd be happy with cold and dry or if we don't get a cold spell then mild and dry. Think I might take a break from model watching for a week and come back and see whats on offer later next weekend.

Well so far this winter from a coldie/snowies point of view has been complete and utter c**p. However what we have had is really just a suped up version of what is normal for the UK in winter namely a flow from somewhere in the westerly half of the compass. So far this month I have recorded 247mm of rain and the thought of a mild , wet February is utterly depressing. To be honest despite being an ardent cold and snow fan I would happily sacrifice the rest of this winter just to have an extended period of dry weather even if it was mild.

It will be interesting BA to see if that turn of events comes about, I wonder if we might see a Jan into feb scenario akin to 1978 developing, obviously that particular situation hugely favoured my corner of the the UK.

If members want to see how we can get from roughly where we are now to a Mid feb cold spell with snow. go to the following address on the wetterzentrale kartenarchive and run forward day by to the 18/19th feb. http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1978/Rrea00119780121.gif Not saying it will happen just showing what a late Jan arctic high and a vortex coming under pressure can do.

Agree wholeheartedly with the above Tamara. Those writing off the rest of winter simply by looking at the current modelling could well end up with egg on their faces come early to mid feb. There seems to be a touching faith in the the ECM 32 dayer etc. The meto long term updates etc. Over the years I have found that if there is no overiding signal for cold ( ie late Nov Dec 2010) then both of these will trump for average winter conditions ie some kind of west based flow. Models perform best when there are overriding signals, when there is great uncertainty like there is now with ( as you pointed out ) numerous players at the table. They are far less reliable at picking the eventual outcome. Hence the see sawing especially in our corner of the world. One only has to look at how the models uhmed and ahhed in advance of last Jans cold/snowy spell to see this in action In our geographical position the test of any model is how accurate will it be when things aren't flying in off the Atlantic at high speed.

As usual yet another brilliant and well thought out post Tamara. Are you sure you're not GP in disguise. There is no doubt that patience is the watchword this winter for coldies/snowies. However I do think that patience will be rewarded.

As I remember it BA the last time we had such levels of shannon entropy was in advance of last Januarys cold and snowy spell.

Thanks Ruben.

is that a split vortex we are looking at on the 06z GFS at 384hrs?

Is that a split vortex we are looking at on the gfs 06z at 384?

Depending on your outlook the current modelling is either mind numbingly boring or incredibly fascinating, perhaps due to having had to learn patience through the mainly atrocious winters of the 1990's, I now fall into the latter category. To my mind the most important feature of the the models at the moment is that none of them, ( even the normally ultra progressive GFS) want to remove the the block to our east. Sure they play about with the exact positioning but in the end they all keep it there and as others have pointed out any progged returns to zonality have been continually put back. Having done an immense amount of model watching over the years, this suggests to me that longer term it is the block which will have more influence on our weather. It is a case at the moment of very very slowly slowly catchey monkey, but I do think at some point we will see a quite sudden movement in the model output towards outcomes favouring the block to our east. The other option in which the block takes control would be some kind of retrogression towards Greenland.

Thanks for your answer John. Its is a truly fascinating subject this model watching.