noggin

Very cold rain here in S.Glos. Ah, well, I cherish the memories of last month's lovely snow. Enjoy what you're having all you lucky snowed-upon peeps! PS Am feeling brave and am off to the model discussion thread to see if there is any hope for the future!

I know that Sunday/Monday are a long way off, but I just have a feeling that it's going to be a damp squib. There just seems to be "something" missing. I can't quite put my finger on it. When we were forecast the snow last month, it just "seemed" to be a certainty and I believed that it would happen. This time, I have my doubts. Maybe I'm being fanciful, or maybe it's having the benefit of hindsight! Either way, I am just not feeling it this time. I didn't feel it the other night either, when snow was forecast for us here in S Glos just a few hours beforehand and it didn't happen. Please excuse the ramblings of a wet blanket. I really would be happy to be wrong on this, but I just ain't feeling it. Sorry to be a misery guts.

Every now and then, it will lift! I am Exeter born and bred (oh, I do miss the beautiful place ). When I was born (February 1956) Exeter was under a prolonged blanket of snow, which froze and caused mayhem. Then there was 1963..........I don't need to say anything about that, just saying "1963" is enough! I can't speak for after 1972, as that is when I stupidly moved away. So, although these mega snow events are few and far between, they do happen.........and when they do, they are staggering and they will stay in your heart and mind for your whole life, just as 1963 and 2009/10 stay in mine. It will happen, at some point! Seeing The Beatles performing live at the ABC in Exeter in 1964 also stays in my mind as a "life event", but that's another story! I often wonder if the fact of being born during a mega snow event is what made me a snow-lover! I'll see if I can find a link for the 1956 event, give me a few minutes. Don't ever give up hope.

A huge black cloud has just appeared here. I wonder what it will bring? It would be nice to see some snow over the next few days, although I'm not holding my breath. A second lot of lying snow (after the big lot last month, which seems a long time ago!) would finish Winter off nicely. The more recent forecasts for snow showers/flurries seem to have come to nothing here. Ah, well, I look forward to the possibilities over the next week. Ever hopeful and all that......... Peace and love to all.

Seeing as it has been wet for the last 9 months, for the first time ever I am looking forward to Spring. Hopefully there will be some blue sky, some sunshine and some warmth. I am also looking forward to working in my new garden and seeing the plants that I planted on a rare dry day in October start to come into life. Blooming windy, blooming overcast and blooming miserable here today!

It might even settle!

That's because we are not the SE or London! We wurzels don't matter!

No, I am not generally just anti-science. No, I do not know how many people have died from AIDS, but we were told that we were all at risk of dying from it. Seems like scaremongering to me. I made a point of saying that it had been interesting to read peoples' replies to my post. Unwilling to debate my position? Well, you are correct there, as I have no debating skills, but as a member of NW I am permitted to "jump in and state what my opinion is on occasion" as you put it. In the past, I got sick and tired of people making assumptions, accusations and generally misinterpreting what I had written practically every time I posted and it seems that little has changed here. Accusations with nothing to back it up? Re-read my post

I am happy to stand corrected! 1981 it appears to have been! But do you recall the public information things on the TV, the ones with the bananas and condoms (who could ever forget them!)? Honestly, they were enough to put the fear of God into a person.......we were practically all doomed. Weren't half of the world's population supposed to succumb? In my very humble opinion, the risk was vastly overstated.

The scientific community can start by not scaremongering and by being absolutely certain of their facts before they start issuing dire warnings. Since the 1970s, when scientists said millions upon millions of people were going to die from AIDS, there has has been scare after scare after scare. It doesn't seem as if any lessons have been learned. Why should we suddenly accept what they are saying now? I prefer to use my own common sense. There is also the matter of funding available for this politically "fashionable" issue. Crikey, I love gardening and gardening is a part of my employment. If my employer had seemingly unlimited funds to allow me to do more and more research into gardening, well, it would be tempting to milk it for all it's worth. Also, I think that these scientists are so wrapped up in their pursuit of proving that it is mankind's "fault" that they are blinkered to anything which doesn't fall in line with what they are aiming to prove. I have been on the receiving end of such blinkered-ness from a professor of paediatrics so I feel that I am qualified to make this statement.

I'm fine, thanks, Wolfie........I hope you are too. What do you think ought to be done with those whom you classify as "denialists"? From over here on my side, similar "accusations" (for want of a better word!) could be made about the "believers". It's been interesting to read peoples' responses to my view, but as has been said, both sides are so entrenched at the moment. I will probably have shuffled off my mortal coil before there is any definitive answer on whether mankind is responsible for climate change or whether it is natural processes/swings. PS I agree with Laserguy!

Remember the torrential hail last night? It froze solid to my windscreen and where it had slid down a bit it entombed my wiper! Took me ages to clear it all off at 6 o'clock this morning.

Just looked at the NW radar.....it looks like we're on fire with all that red!

Thunder, lightning and torrential hail in Coalpit Heath. It looks as if we've had a blizzard....everything is white!

I haven't been in here for ages, but thought I'd pop in! I was only thinking this morning about climate change. This would seem an appropriate point in which to re-iterate my personal view, for what it is worth. BFTV....you refer to a "scientific truth". But in the 1970s, scientists said we were heading for an ice age. In the 1990s we were going to have a Mediterranean climate. Current thinking seems to be that we will have more extreme weather. It's like the boy who cried wolf.....we haven't had an ice age and we do not have a Mediterranean climate. Why should I believe the current prognostications? My own view is that climate changes all by itself and not because of man's influence.

There are similar rumblings in the Model Discussion thread, of a colder outlook again! Yum yum! It's cloudy here now and just a little snow is left, under hedges and on sunless shed roofs. A joyous moment for me is that the thaw has revealed that my daffodils have come up........only about an inch, but they are there! I planted them in November (in my new garden) and that is the first progress I have seen. Everything else I planted has been dormant, but my lovely daffodils have grown under all that snow. PS Looking absolutely horrendous for the next 4 days, wih torrential rain. We haven't dried out from last year yet, the ground is still saturated and local fields are still flooded.

I grew up in Devon, where the snow "settled". I moved to Bristol, where the snow "pitched". It also "lays" in some places, I think!

Chucking it down in Coalpit Heath .

I'm on a day off..........I'll see what I can do!

Your earlier response to my observations referred to AGW, but now you refer to GW without the A. Whilst I believe that the global temperature fluctuates, I do not ascribe the changes to anthropogenic causes. The A itself is only a small thing, just a letter in fact, but using that small thing makes a whole heap of difference when used in front of the other two letters: GW. I am just wanting to make my position clear. .........what happened to the climate change forum? Did it turn into a bearpit?

A very welcome top-up of about a quarter inch here in Coalpit Heath. Glancing through the thread, am I right in that there will (could) be more later today? Off to the MetO site to find out......

Hang on......... I never mentioned the dreaded AGW and would like to make it clear that I do not believe in it. I just wanted to say how Februarys have changed in my lifetime!

Light snow/snizzle/ice pellets in Coalpit Heath.

May I post my observations on the changing of Winters? I go back quite a long way (born in 1956) and my birthday is in February. I have had an avid interest in the weather since I was a young girl who insisted on going out to dance in the rain, much to my Mother's annoyance! My comments are for Februarys, as I have always particularly noted the weather on my birthday. As a child and teenager, there was nearly always snow, either falling or lying on the ground on my birthday. In my twenties/thirties, I was reduced to having frost on my birthday. In my forties....total rubbish...mild, damp dross. In my fifties....it seems to be reverting back to snow. I reckon it's all cycles. Cycles within cycles. Cycles within cycles within cycles......... .........and I am sure we understand only a little about how they inter-act. PS Hello, Wolfie.

3 to 4 inches in Coalpit Heath. Very nice, indeed!