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well we havent had many frosts here - more than 2006/7 winter but still only 5 air frosts, 3 white ground frosts , all before new year. as i expected, the daffodils are now coming out here after the weekend's and todays, sunshine, and the grass is growing. i had two exellent long walks at the weekend in London, probably covered about 20 miles, the soil and parks smell "alive" for the first time since late november and spring is here. kind of worrying but kind of nice too.

14.5 degrees C here - maybe it will get nearer 20degrees C than 10 degrees today ?

they do have rain there sometimes but really quite infrequently and the houses dont have heating. a colleague of mine went to dubai last year in november for a hol and had 4 days of rain out of 7 and it was only 20 degrees. so it does ocassionally happen . they also have had snow in the mountains in the northern emirates. its been about 16 or 17 degrees in abu dhabi and dubai during the days this week i think - cold for them as its usually 23 at least, even in winter. bit of relief for the UK expats though i guess, they are probably feeling homesick! after the cyclone in oman last year, they could be forgiven for wondering whats happening to the weather over there!

do you think we will see 16 degrees in the next week?

people keep saying this about Jan but i remember last year being much milder - day after day and nights of 12 and 13s. we've had 9s or 10s this year - its cooler.

i used to build igloos with my sister in the 80s winters too! also the point made about strange snow formations is spot on, we used to get weird shaped drifts as well and even morphed some of them into snowmen, or mined them for snowman/igloo material! at school we made ice "skid tracks" many winters running , in the playground (i'm sure some health and safety killjoy would have put salt down if this happened today ) and ice on the lake opposite the school was frozen to depths of aeound 6 inches in some years. we were forbidden from walking on it but of course we did, testing it by throwing large bricks on as hard as we could first - they would bounce off with a weird noise and we knew it was safe to walk.................happy days. :lol: there was a whole evil sport of hard packed snowball throwing too - lethal stingers, some of them!

i also remember ice inside the windows of my parents centrally heated house in the late 70s and early to mid 80's. i just thought it was normal in winter to have these massive icicles everywhere and play in the snow daily in the field next to the house, sometimes for a couple of weeks at a time. and in the pennnines drifts would be on the hills, under wall sides facing north, long streaks of deep white, and in protected gullies, for much of the winter, even lasting through the milder spells then getting replenished, then melting in April. it was a certain kind of fun playing in the drifts at the edges long after the rest of the field were green and the grass growing, i always thought. in fact my grandmother used to say " we need another lot of snow to get take this lot away" . it hardly sticks around long enough now to use the phrase, snow just does not endure on the ground for any period , even in most of the pennines under 500m , like it used to . i think we got more hill snow and i think some of these snow events came from the west or north west. i went to school in Bradford, a few miles from where i grew up , and frequently would go to school in wellies , saying there was loads of snow where i lived, and all the city dwellers didnt believe me and laughed. elevation seemed more important around then - now the snow line in winter has perhaps risen a couple of hundred metres in recent winters, the hills dont get the snow they used to - its even more noticeble than in the lowland areas. the last time i remember hill snow lasting late in yorkshire was in 95-96, when i saw snowdrifts in May up at the top of the Pennines, which had lasted weeks. think its not happened since. now i live in London of course we hardly ever get any snow at all. my perception of what a winter is has changed and i expect the geraniums to flower all winter, in sheltered spots - they have done in the most recent years (may be touch and go this year!). if i want cold weather and snow now i just get on a plane for an hour and go to the alps.

you really do have a different climate up there, its quite amazing. in my flat even in winter i tend to need the heating on only 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the evening. and not at all between mid march and mid november. just goes to show the Uk has big variations in climate conditions, year round. hence why we shouldnt be too surprised when highland scotland gets snow but lowland english cities get only drizzle, i guess. ps how long do the snowpatches have to last to become glaciers?

i don't profess to be an expert but i believe this may be true. the "failure" of this week's high has actually surprised me, this time last week i thought it was going to take up residence and lead to a proper easterly. these features (winter highs leading to easterlies) do seem to be weaker than when i was a kid in the early 80's, when they were reasoably frequent visitors in winter, and more often than not seemed to set up in the same position and lead to the same outcome - a midwinter 10 day cold spell with frequent snow periodically, just about anywhere. Nothing remarkable appeared on the news unless more than 15 cm was forecast, or to be wind driven, or temps dropped below 0 deg for a week or more. "Big Freeze" headlines did appear from time to time (every other winter ) in the '80s, but theywere justifiably accompanied by shots of lowland England covered in 30-50, not 2 cms of level snow, and the TV only went big on it after a week or 10 days of a freeze, not half a day. In fact, members over 35 years old may well remember the annual political debates over when "cold weather fuel payments" ( additional payments of £10 a week to pensioners to heat their houses) , should be triggered - and i think 7 consecutive days of below 0 deg C , day and night, were the trigger required before they got an extra payment in the 80s. Can you imagine a week of below 0 deg and snow these days? people would be panicing, not just wanting an extra tenner. But the fact that this was provided shows that in the 80s, only such conditions were considered particularly harsh, but not so rare as to not have a contingency for at all. Hard to imagine a full week sub zero day and night across the UK today, let alone having to legislate for its regular occurance. To hear a forecaster on BBC London last night stating there would be "significant" snowfall, and in the next breath say it would be melted by the afternoon with 4 degrees and slushy in town just shows how things have changed, in terms of our winter cold and snow expectations in the last 25 years. for what its worth, I think it is just a phase too, and not a "even larger teapot" thing, and things will change back. But without a doubt its defininately warmed up in winter since around 1990, and those highs drawing in Easterlies and particularly north easterlies, have become rare, weaker features.

you are right. it used to be they got hyped up over 6 inches of snow ; now its 1 inch 2 day flurry that gets headline writers busy. first snow of winter always gets more attention than the others, too. agree with this. somehow he is always the kiss of death to a cold snap, or any other "event" he forecasts.

1.2 degrees

I'm gonna be 1000 feet up in the pennines at christmas so i imagine there's a fair shot at snow. we usually get it one year in every 2 or 3.

St Luke's little summer coming in right on cue this year.............

wasnt it Bill Giles that made "that forecast"? i think everyone's got it wrong!

I have swung both ways on this matter over the years, and its so difficult to get a handle on. I believe significant changes are happening , but i'm not sure we are the cause, in terms of CO2. It could be other ways in which we're changing the planet , not just pure CO2 related. Or it could be just natural changes in our climate. It just seems so convenient that governments have jumped on it as an excuse to levy a whole new range of taxes and fines. This could be either cynical money grabbing, or they may be an ulterior motive, like weening people off oil a bit and accepting cuts in energy use to prepare us for shortages. or it may be genuinely altruistic care for the planet, but i doubt it . when the arctic ice goes , we will at least have milder winters, i guess.

there's a very high mountain pass over here, i remember getting very car sick going over here a few years ago! great thread to watch

hard to believe its going to get nasty , it was such a gorgeous day here in old london town, have been working on the tan cycling round Epping Forest. Probably a nice memory to treasure when its throwing it down on Tues!

i was thinking of the fastnet race too. funny as its going on at the same time as this - is there often a large storm at this juncture in august, i wonder. just like wimbledon falls in the monsoon, maybe fastnet often conincides with windy weather?

it may be unrepresentative but it still reached 30 degrees here, heat island effect or not, which is what we are arguing about at the end of the day..... sorry.........i'll get my coat.

well i was sat out all day sunday in the garden & pub and it certainly "felt like" 30 degrees walking around, it was very hot. probably also felt v hot because it was a good 5 degrees above most other days this summer!

Central london will not flood, people are posting ridiculous stuff here. The river downstream is governed by the tides and sea level changes twice a day, the rate of outflow from upstream is pretty irrelevant as soon as it gets below teddington lock its in the tidal system and the only danger comes from high spring tides and sea surges co inciding with large volumes of flood waters coming down. No surges or particcularly high tides are forecast, the floodwater will dribble harmlessly into the estuary. Forget these silly day after tomoerow scenarios. Central london is totally safe.

One of my friends who lives in pershore says there has been a cataclysmic amount of rain; everywheres flooded and not even from the river. They're worried about the next day or two as the water heads down. Widespread flooding and chaos not seen in living memory.

Beautiful afternoon now in Central London. After the darkest, gloomiest July morning i can remember for years, and the storm, it sudenly all cleared around 1pm and we're in now warm sunshine, brilliant blue skies, little fluffy clouds, and absolutely top class air quality ( which has been the redeeming feature of this summer for us city dwellers) has returned. Wonderful!

now cleared from central london..............willl we get convective storms later - sun will be shining brightly in a few minutes.