Duane S.

Just arrived back home after watching the waves in Chiswell, Portland. A truly humbling experience, as indeed it always is. The semi-darkness just gave the waves an even more sinister feel to them. I must admit that that is the first time I have been as aprehensive as that watching waves there. I kept a VERY careful eye on wave gap times and further out to sea for any extreme waves breaking very early (and my car was parked VERY close with the door wide open!). 10 minutes was enough for me though. I survived the waves then nearly got wiped out by a tree on my way home!

Glad to see I'm not the only nutter still up. Hopefully this will fulfil its promise (after all, that is what most of us want) as I've been harping on about this system all week at work! :-) Still planning to head of to Portland at about 4:10am. Worst of the winds wont be there by then I doubt but that is high tide so should be interesting.

Nobody can say exactly HOW bad it is going to get but the (key word) potential is there for a very very severe storm, not just hitting the coasts either. These systems are notoriously difficult to track exactly and have a habit of changing course and/or deepening/filling within just a few hours of actually hitting us. But even if it doesn't transpire to be a one in xx year event then it will still be mighty windy and mighty wet tonight/tomorrow morning!

Certainly shaping up to be an interesting 24 hours. This one could be the real deal. Got oodles of potential. I don't buy into all this 'let's hope its not too destructive' nonsense. I want to see a monster storm hit us, extreme weather is so rare in this country that when a chance of some crops up I also have my fingers crossed for it to happen. Could be regretting those words early tomorrow morning though as I plan to head off to Portland for high tide at 4:30am! Currently raining hard with little wind ,the calm before the storm...

http://www.torro.org.uk/site/forecast.php

Under 'comedy' or 'propaganda' ? Read the first few predictable paragraphs and switched off, sorry.

Very true indeed. Last winter's start was probably about a one in 30 year event in respect of just how early it was in the season and how (relatively) harsh it was. Even 'back in the day' some may be shocked to learn that winter didn't in fact start in October and didn't end in April, with non stop heavy snow and ice days in between!

I response to TEITS's post earlier on in part 3 ###################################################################### Recent posts have just reminded me why I don't bother posting anymore winter forecasts! You know when it comes to winter LRFs I have to be honest im not impressed with many that are available to us. I shall explain the reasons below. Ian Brown - Just predicts mild all the time and he does this because its a safe bet. However in doing this you will get caught out at some stage. Met O - Far too vague to be called a forecast i.e prediction of temps being near, around or above normal isn't what I call a forecast. Piers Corbyn - Do I need to say anything! Glacier Point- One of the better forecasts available although I hope GP doesn't mind me saying but I do think in seeking cold signals makes the forecast slightly bias. Joe B - Unfortunately he loves writing sensational, headline grabbing forecasts with a bias to cold weather. I would say my favourite has to be Steve Murr. Obviously he prefers cold weather like the rest of us but he will also be honest if a mild winter is likely. ####################################################################### Pretty much agree wholeheartedly with those sentiments. GP's (and Brickfielder's) LRFs/posts are often over my head but always a fascinating read nevertheless(hopefully one day I will understand it all :lol: ) Joe B is a fun read and (IMO) does really know what he is talking about. Not to be taken too seriously beacause of his incredible cold bias though. Steve Murr, a bit like yourself TEITS, has probably been bitten too many times by spoilers and as a result now produces very level-headed forecasts. Written with passion and for the layman too. I also have a lot of time for BFTP and RJS as well who were smack on the money a lot of the time last winter. My thoughts for this winter. I still think we are going to be in the midst of a cold snap come the latter part of this month. A relatively short-lived but reasonably potent Northerly. I don't hold up a lot of hope for December with the Atlantic taking a firm grip for a few weeks but again I can see a pattern change come Xmas and a decent cold snap taking hold. Then maybe an average January (not a good thing by recent standards) followed up by a memorable February with several big snow events. All in all a fairly average winter but with a decent sting in its tale. That'll do me. Regards El Nino and its effects I think it is all too easy getting too focussed in on what is in effect just one driver (albeit potentially a very big one). SSW is I think another factor which possibly gets too much attention and whilst I agree it is (or at least, can be) a big weather driver, on its own with certain counter-forces it can easily become neutralised. I think the often overlooked factor in the crazed frenzy that takes over all of us is that we live somewhere which is simply not geared up to receive sustained cold weather. Everything is against it happening. Spoilers are the norm, it's when they don't appear that it becomes extraordinary. This is not a new thing it has always been the case. Ian Brown feeds off this safe in the knowledge that his vague repeat 'forecasts' are going to be nearer than not most of time. Sorry Ian but my 6 year old could have done that 3 years ago.

I have just imported the past 60 years worth of the monthly mean AO index figures and interestingly found that only Dec '95 and Dec'00 featured in the lowest 20 monthly figures over the 1950-present period. However it was equally interesting to note that 11 out of the 20 lowest AO months featured in an 11 year period between 1958 and 1969. Conversely, peak +AO monthly activity was between 1988 and 1997 and thereafter there are only 2 months which had a month in the highest 20 +AO months between 1950 and now!! Another quick observation was two notably relative 'neutral' periods, one from 1950-1958 and another from 1996-present! I know this may not be the entirely the correct way of obtain an annual mean but it'll do for this, anyway I then averaged each year's monthly AO mean results and imposed conditional formating using a graded colour scale(from red denoting the highest AO value to blue denoting the lowest AO value), there was then a fairly graphic representation of how our winters have panned out. early on from 1950 through until the mid sixties was relatively blue, later on reds ruled the roost although it was very notable how red the period between 1988-1994 was! I bunged this into a graph, which I've attatched, and it shows how much more common a -AO year was earlier on in the period from 1950-present ao_chart.docx OMG am I agreeing with 'the christmas pudding'!!! No! I personally think this is part of a bigger cycle that has already started to plataeu and that we will see begin to reverse over the next couple of decades or so. If we had carried on getting strong +AO annual values that occured from the supposed beginning of this mythical era in 1989 through to 1994 until now then I may be left seriously wondering but the fact is that this didn't occur, as this chart shows... ao_chart1989.docx Now, I am not indicating that -AO equals the scenario we are looking for here (although it is a pretty decent indicator) or that it equates to cold weather for us (quite the opposite sometimes in fact) but the lowest mean -AO month was Jan 1963!!

Not so easy this challenge! Certainly is a rare beast. I found this one but I've just noticed it was supposed to be in the past 5 years, doh!! http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1956/Rrea00119560203.gif

I have a few from the balmy south coast some are a little fuzzy although the one the longest time ago is as clear as day. January of 1981 (maybe a year out here though). Sent home from school on more than one occasion. Pre-Xmas '84 and early Jan '85. Good memories of frequent heavy snow. Mid(ish) Jan 1987. Doing donuts around the local carparks covered with snow and ice. It got soooo cold on a couple of those days. The 5th of Match this year, completely unexpected. So bad (well, good) that I was unable to leave Weymouth until midday, all routes out were blocked. http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2009/Rrea00120090305.gif But only one can win out. The incredible once-in-a-lifetime freak night of February 18th 1978. http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1978/Rrea00119780219.gif MC Wesather who posts on here wrote a great book on the events of mid february 1978, well worth a read especially if you live locally or can remember any of it. http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/articles/ArticlesDetail.asp?ID=671

Yeah but it works both ways. 2003's record 38.5 temperature was (still is) pretty much solely put down to the effects of AGW by many.

Been a far from 'memerable' summer here on the central southern coast. August been decent, July a complete washout and June was mixed. That link you posted to show the hottest days is quite staggering IMO. The average hottest day over the period 1900-2009 is 32.2 The past 3 years have an average max recorded temp of just 30.5. Starting at the year 1900 this low 3 year max temp average didn't occur for 64 years until the years 1962-1964 came in at a lowly 29.8!! Years in the decade where the average max temperature over the past 110 years (of 32.2) OR ABOVE was achieved... 1900-1909 6 times 1910-1919 7 times 1920-1929 8 times 1930-1939 7 times 1940-1949 9 times 1950-1959 6 times 1960-1969 4 times 1970-1979 3 times 1980-1989 2 times 1990-1999 7 times 20000-2009 6 times Average max temp of 32.2 or above acheived... 1900-1954 40 times (out of 55 years) 1955-2009 25 times (out of 55 years) The last 2 decades (1990-2009) have seen the average matched or topped THIRTEEN times. How many times has this occured (there were 13 or more years where the temperature exceeded the average maximum temperature) during other the 20 year periods? 1900-1919 YES 1910-1929 YES 1920-1939 YES 1930-1949 YES 1940-1959 YES 1950-1969 NO 1960-1979 NO 1970-1989 NO 1980-1999 NO Delving deeper in I was shocked to discover that if I take the run of years during the infamous 'Modern Summer' era of between 1989 and 2006 the average MAX temp comes in at 33.36. Note: I purposely started and finished with two years of more extreme temps (1989 of 34.4 and 2006 of 36.5). It didn't take long to find a similar lengthy period which recorded similar temperatures. A run of TWENTY SIX consecutive years (1932 - 1957) in which the max temperature recorded in those years never dropped below 30 degrees and came in only fractionally under recent warm stint at 33.01! I was still expecting this recent warm spell to blow everything else that had come before it out of the water! Not so. It became very quickly apparent that no careful manipulation of the figures would be required (not that I would have done this anyway ;-) ). Whatever I did seemed to show more and more that nothing remarkable has happened to us in the last xx years. Take the first 30 years of the period 1900-2009 and compare to the last 30 years, the average max temp recorded is 32.35 for the former, 32.3 for the latter! Add into that the inevitable urbanisation effect of latter years & the strange fact that why exactly did Camden record quite SO many 'high scores' (21 in fact) up until 1968 before suddenly none thereafter. More plus better equipped reporting from other areas (that may well have recorded higher figures than others in earlier years had they been up and working at the time) Further proof that the age we live in is experiencing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary whatsover.

Remember it only too well. Having spent the previous day in ridiculously & dangerously hot Paris (I understand now why the capital is near deserted for the entire month of August), I spent it on a beach in Groix, an island of the Western coast of Brittany. Baking baking hot but not as hot as a lot of places in the UK were experiencing.

Nail on head. A lot of 'environmental journos' are starting to get desperate in their attempts at prolonging their pay packets.

They and the deluded will spin it, they always do. It would probably take the sight of penguins walking down Oxford Street for them to admit that there is a small possibilty that they may have been wrong in their 'calculations'.

It's been a perfectly average start of the summer. The thing is, early June has virtually always been a rainy period of weather for us in the UK. For a period of between one and three weeks around about this time, almost by clockwork, we get battered by the Atlantic. Then as quick as it arrives it all calms down and we get a good spell of settled weather. This has the hallmarks of being a shorter lived version, the signs are there of a return to a more 'summery' feel in about 8-10 days time.

In answer to the thread question and having not read the thread yet (I will later), I would have to say it ranks as 'a decent old skool winter' round these parts. Not spectacular but looking out through my window now I can see the hills towards Dorchester are still bright white from yesterday's very impressve snow event down here. AND, not for the first time either. This is something that has been a VERY rare sight over recent years but was something you would always see, at times, throughout winters of old (70's, 80's, not old enough to remember before then). Some winters back then, of course, would be like our more recent ones but they were the exception. As somebody who was flying the flag of sense and not concurring with those who remained steadfast in their beliefs that this sort of thing couldn't happen again in marginal places like Weymouth, I must admit I am glad we have had this winter as I too was beginning to lose faith as well. Yesterday should've been sleet at best, it wasn't, it has restored my faith 100%.

heavy snow in Tropcial Weymouth for the past few hours. No way out of the town at the moment with both main routes closed. Not a common event at all round here let alone in March!

I do B) No doubt worded with convenient get-out clauses though. Good post WIB. One of the main factors always given out about why are winters have been so poor of late (aka the 'even larger teapot') is the northern extent of the jetsteam. This has been notably further south over the past couple of years. That's a big 'blip'.

Spot on. Far too much arrogance based on very little. I hope these people ARE constantly reminded about their wild and unfounded assumptions, when they are proved to be wholly inaccurate. It is exactly this sort of thing that helps feed the crazed media frenzy that has been going on reference AGW for the past xx amount of years. That said, the usual suspects will have this winter down as a 'blip' no doubt. There's 'blips' and then there's 08/09 'blips', very different indeed.

Just starting to ease up. Impressive stuff!

Well that's more like it! Just picked up boy from school which has had to close early. Haven't seen snow like this for years down here on the coast. It's wet snow but it settling well. Been snowing hard now for over 2 hours. Already built a snowman as I would imagine when it stops it will melt quiet quick. BTW it's absolute chaos out there at the mo, the roads are jammed and all you can here is the sound of police sirens. Right, back out into the garden again!

Right, now I am absolutely CONVINCED somebody is having a laugh at my expense!! Increasingly disconsolate about Weymouth having no snow, I set off this morning to head to parts of North Dorset to find places for me to take my boy later on this afternoon. Light snow all the time in my 2 hours away. I come back to Weymouth and it's a complete whiteout!!! Wet snow but massive flakes and settling, chaos ensuing out there at the moment on the roads. Couldn't ****ing make it up...

Rain rain rain on the tropical south coast. Oh well, was to be expected I suppose Is it toooo much to ask for us to see some snow this winter?