Yozzer

100% of this winter has had snow cover here. Some folk are never satisfied...

Has the 6Z recently assumed the role of the pub run? Asking for a friend...

Let's hope she's beach ready, as I'm about to travel south of the equator!

Sliderland. Sounds like a naff winter theme park...

I doubt you can compare a satellite photo very well as the chart will be distorted due to the impossibility of projecting the globe accurately onto a flat surface. In addition, the scale will be slightly different.

Professional meteorologists should not be identified as cold rampers, or any other sort of rampers. It would be better if they remain objective in their assessments, otherwise their professional standing suffers. Call me an old cynic, but it makes me suspect that the reason for ramping is that it drives site traffic, a la (notvery)exactaweather...

I did that once, and I ruptured my cruciate...

Dear Pub Run, I understand why you felt the need to check in for a couple of weeks at the Priory, but, to be honest, you're just no fun anymore. We all used to love the old 18Z, sometimes you made us laugh, occasionally you made us cry, but mostly you lifted our spirits when we were on the cusp of despair. But now you've become all sober and serious, like your big brother the 12Z. Sorry, but you're just boring, with your permanent euro slug high and south westerly mush. You may be right, but we don't love you for it. You know, a couple of pints of Old Speckled Badger's Finger won't do you any harm of an evening. Promise. Go on, you know you want to..... Sincerely, YH.

The ink is hardly dry on the Netweather winter forecast calling for a cold start to winter, and up pops ugly old uncle Barty. You really couldn't make it up! Roll on April when we'll no doubt get a decent shot at a nationwide blizzard...

Maybe, but given that the UK only occupies approx. 2.5% of the land area of Europe, don't assume that he is referring to Blighty.

Hi Carinthian, We're in a catered chalet (Verwall) with Esprit. It will be a fairly standard chalet, but they have top-notch childcare. They take them at 9am for ski school and afternoon fun skiing, and look after them til 11pm if needed. They're happy, I'm happy! Sounds like you know Obergurgl. Any top tips? I heard that the Nederhutte is legendary for après-ski, so looking forward to that, although I'm getting a bit past it for table dancing these days!!!

Nice picture Carinthian. Off with the family to Obergurgl on 10th Jan. Hoping that this coming week delivers some reasonable top ups.

Arrived at the house in NH for a few days, the caretaker has raked a fair amount of snow off the roof and cleared the surrounds. Currently a winter storm watch in place, although as we're a fair way from the coast here we're only expecting 4-8 inches on top of the approx 36 inches that are lying currently. The main issue here is going to be the wind whipping up lying snow, as well as wind chill. We've got advisories in place for frostbite with winds of 30-40 mph and temps as low as -30C. Going to be fun, and if I can post some pics I will (although I have to use a cafe with wifi in a neighbouring town as I have no internet or mobile coverage at the house). ps, I flew into Manchester airport in New Hampshire, the piles of snow down there (closer to the coast) are enormous!

Hi Eightwinds, and welcome to NW. I too am semi-retired and spend 2 or 3 months in France, mostly during the summer when we run our gites. I'll keep popping back in here and look forward to a chat.

This far out difficult to say, but my guess would be somewhere between -14C and +15C. Could be wrong though.

Snow? In Cairo? That's ......wait for it......BAZAAR! (Sorry, groaning at that one myself!)

A bit pedantic but that's not strictly true. The reason is that the jetstream and associated weather systems move from west to east, and the air mass is modified by its passage over the Atlantic to us. That would be true even if the Gulf stream didn't exist, we would still have a maritime climate rather than a continental one, although granted temps would probably be a few degrees cooler. So today for example, Scotland might be getting temps of 7C instead of 11 or 12C. Bitter winters only come from airmasses sourced from eastern or northern quadrants, and I doubt that the lack of the gulf stream would make a huge amount of difference to the frequency of those events.

Bet that brings back some memories eh John?

Yes, I'm off to Gressoney in the Italian Alps over Xmas, and there really is very little chance of fresh snow before then. The only difference from the winters of late 80s and 90s when such a pattern as this was fairly common is that these days most resorts have decent snowmaking facilities. With cold temps at night the cannons will be cranking out the snow, so all is not lost. Still, I'm hoping that the euro high will drift northward and allow an undercut from the Balkans to the Alpine regions. That could happen quite unexpectedly.

Thanks SI. From a broad brush perspective looks like it could be there or thereabouts, in other words, bland. Whether that's due to science or pot luck, the jury's out on that one. One thing i can't see is the predicted storm around 15th Dec, but plenty of time for that to change.

Can anyone give me a link to RJS' winter forecast please? Ta muchly.

Do you have a link for Roger's winter forecast?

It's gonna be bad, real bad. But hopefully the beer lorry will still make it...

Has anyone noticed the anomolous area of ice just to the south-east of the Kerguelen Islands at approx 53S 70E? Any evidence as to what it is, i.e. a large berg or an area of thin surface ice? Also there seems to be a much smaller area approx 52S 5W, same question! http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsdivka.html (Click on Sudhemisphare!!)

Currently in New Hampshire it is -28F (--32C), but snow is less than average with about a level foot round the house (normally by now we're up to about 2 to 3 feet). Ballater meanwhile (relying on reports here), there was little to get excited over until this last weekend, 2 to 3 inches but some hard frosts, but since then some pretty massive constant falls, with over 2 feet lying now. Meanwhile, my relatives on the Durham coast have green fields and no frost for about 4 days!