Yeti
-
Posts
1,277 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Events
Learn About Weather and Meteorology
Community guides
Posts posted by Yeti
-
-
PS: btw Stratos, isn't it that 99% of values MUST fall within 3 SDs considering that it will be normally distributed?
Or do you mean something different?
-
Whilst it is nice to read stories of 78/79, or 1963, or 1947 etc, we need to bear in mind that these were absolutely exceptional winters and nothing like the norm even in those older days. Nobody is saying this winter is anything like as bad as that, but certainly for some, the 08/09 winter will stand out as one of the best winters in the last 20 years.
That's certainly true for me, BUT the first part to me is a bit contradictory. Yes, they were exceptional winters and nobody is suggesting they were they norm, but they did, at least, happen.
Now the laws of probability allow for a winter like one of those 3 not to have happened since, and so far we could put it down to chance. But the problem is, nothing has even come close - we lack a Jan 87, Feb 91, Feb 86 etc. etc. (Feb 09 doesn't really compare) and what used to occur about every other winter now hasn't occurred since Feb 91.
For me at least, this makes "bad luck" impossible and shows that there must be something else at hand other than fortune.
-10c or below is hardly severe cold, though, considering that the record minimum in England is below -26. When was the last time we reached -15 in England? And even -15 is 11c warmer than the record minimum.I would argue that widespread values of -10c does constitute severe cold. Although you quote the minimum of -26c recorded at Newport in January 1982 it should be remembered that this was the extreme value at one location and on the same night large swathes of the country recorded minima of -10c to -15c and it was only in the most favoured locations for severe frost that -18c or lower was recorded ; this was on what was, arguably, one of the coldest nights in the last 100 years across England and Wales.
During the coldest period in the winter of 1962/63 when there were several successive days with widespread minima below -10c the Met' Office certainly described the cold as severe. In those days the temperatures were given in degrees fahrenheit and I clearly remember the forecaster solemnly declaring that temperatures overnight would widely fall to as low as 12 or 14 degrees and to below 10f in some areas; the celcius equivalent being -10, -11 and -12 respectively.
On the same nights some places recorded -15c to -18c or lower but it was once the -10c mark was widely breached that the term 'severe cold' was used.
Good point, but whilst 63 had very prolonged cold, at no point did it have an exceptionally severe spell wrt cold uppers such as Jan 87.
My real question is, when was the last time we reached -15 in England?
-
Admittedly there are only ten degrees between freezing and the rough benchmarks I gave, as opposed to sixteen more to the record low, however were one to look at the distribution of minima for any given location then I'd suggest that values lower than -10C are rare indeed. The UKMO will have formal qualitative labels that they attach to temperatures, and this has been discussed on occasion on here somewhere: so far as I recall the most extreme label relative to temperature on any given day is only about 5C wide of the daily average, giving a two tail range of 10C. I haven't check, but I'd reckon certainly 2, and perhaps around 3SDs of data fall within the range, i.e. over 99%. Severe in this case, therefore, is intended to mean "extreme by local standards", rather than absolutely cold.
Re snowfall: the two years for which I (fortuitously, as it happens( kept my own detailed stats were 1978 and 1979.
In 1978 snow fell on 32 days in NW Leeds from Jan-Apr, I don't have data for December but back then it would have been unlikely for the month to pass snowless.
In 78-9 it fell on 62 occasions, every month from November through to May. It lay for 78 days, including as late as the morning of May 4th, and consecutively from December 29th to February 24th.
The individual snowfall that I noted included "about 7"" on December 31st; 15" from the blizzard of January 20-21st; 3" on the 28th; 11" from the blizzards on Feb 12-13th, and 5" more on the 15th; and in March, 13" across the 16-17th. There were various odd days of comparatively slight snowfall, but that lot together amounts to around 54" of snowfall. I haven't had 54" in total in the ten winters that I've lived up here at a much higher, and rural (rather than sub-urban) location. I doubt I've even had 2/3rds of that total.
For the benefit of those with delicate sensibilities I shall never say never, but let's say that I do not expect to see its like again in my lifetime - and those who saw 1963 said 1979 wasn't a patch, which when you see the archive photos and read the stories is beyond sensible debate.
I agree that below -10 is rare, but if you are in a severe easterly spell (79, 81, 86, 87, 91 etc.) with the -15 isotherm above you, it would be surprising if -15c wasn't reached in at least one place in England. Most of the country covered in snow, so as soon as the wind dies down and the skies clear (which in 2 weeks+ of severe cold is likely) I would say that -15 would be difficult NOT to reach. These days those low temps seem to be restricted to the Highlands. When was the last time England reached -15? A long time is my guess, and yet in the 80s I would put money on this having happened at least once a year in most years (not all). And as I say, even -15 is 11c off the record minimum.
The main reason for this is undoubtedly the lack of cold uppers. Take one of the best months, synoptically, in recent times - Feb 2005. Upper temps rarely, if ever, got to -10. To my knowledge, the last time the -15 isotherm arrived was 91, and in 87 and 56 the -20 clipped Kent. Once these cold uppers have been engrained into the flow over a long period of time, and the air falls slack, severe minima become an inevitability. Sadly, since 1991 we haven't even come close to such a setup - hence the sparsity of decent minima in the C21.
Very much agree.Oddly enough I recall being with my Dad on his calls in the February of 1978 following the one-off serious storm of that winter in early Feb, the Fri-Sat at the start of half-term I recall. From the bottom of Garrowby Hill (on the A166 between York and Driffield) to the top, a climb of 750' or so onto the Wolds, we went from around 2-3" of snow to a road that had literally been buldozed clear to a single line between the hedges. Apparently it had only opened the day before. Thinking back to my Dad's rota that would have been the Wednesday, so five days to clear, and save for the passage over the Col de la Madeleine last March, the only time in my life I've driven through drifts above the top of the car.
Good times :lol:
And there was I thinking the 1.5m drifts at Greenhow (420m) by the road in the Dales this week were impressive!
-
I wonder if you're perhaps confusing media coverage and weather forecasts Yeti, as there were many alerts and various forecasts covering Northern England by the meto (and ourselves, plus I'm sure other orgs) during the cold spell..
Perhaps in that post, but as I said earlier, snow was forecast very poorly in the N in general - when it was forecast it didn't fall as much, and when it wasn't, it did.
-
With all due respect there is a bit of naivety here.
As I have said before, cold is not a guarantee of snow, you can have winters that are cold overall or at least not mild and have little snow whilst another winter could be milder but you see more snow.
I have not used it all this winter but here is the example I always quote
Winter 1963-64 CET: 3.5
Winter 1993-94 CET: 4.7
Which one was snowier?
Winter 1993-94
In terms of big snowfalls (1 ft plus) I always quote 2000/01 as having two such events. And yet it was above average to average depending on the benchmark.
-
Ok if this is true can all those who are complaining please post some charts of our recent cold spell illustrating snow events that was ignored by the Met O.
Like I said earlier the recent cold spell first hit London on Feb 2nd with nearly 30cm of snowfall. The heavy snowfalls then moved onto SW England/E Midlands where snowfalls ranged from 20-30cm with upto 55cm in the SW. As I posted last night locations such as Wick only managed 8cm of lying snow and the weather station used was an official weather station.
TEITS, those figures are slightly selective!!!
Shower activity was almost as intense in Yorkshire during the Thames Streamer, and lasted a lot longer - giving big depths to the E of the region but of course this wasn't mentioned and the focus was on the SE. Several frontal events brought snow to Yorkshire northwards, long after the snow had disappeared from London.
As I say I have had a max. depth of 10 inches, with more in terms of how much fell in total, and only this afternoon has the snow (nearly) disappeared from the garden - that's 2 weeks of not being able to see the grass and snowy roads/pavements. The fact is that this snowy spell has been just as severe in parts of the N as it has been in many places further S. In fact in general I would say the N has seen as much snow as the S, and what fell stuck about for a LOT longer.
SE Scotland saw a foot of snow fall in one go at one point, but this, again, hardly had a mention.
What has had a mention is not indicative of how much snow has fallen or who has been hardest hit.
You mention the E Midlands but Andy in Leicester has seen a fair bit less snowfall than most of Yorkshire!
-
Impressive stuff Tom. Re many on here posting as if the world only began after 1980 I suspect that it's because, for many on here, it did. In the use of superlatives, and some hyperbole, I tend, therefore, to cut some of our younger posters a bit of slack, and that's importnat in responding to a question like this one.
I'm going to hold back with a personal response until we're through March, but right now my take is that it's an impressive winter in any context, and exceptional in the modern series (since 1987). Mr D's stats, although for his own locale only, neatly sum up my own PERCEPTION though. This month is just about at the top table in the recent record, but by no means anything like outstanding or severe.
There has been some short lived intense cold, during the second week in January for example, when temperatures widely got down to -10C an lower, but the prevalence of this has been less marked than in some previous extreme spells. There has been periodic snow, but not persistent snow (as happened in 1963 and 1979, say), and that that fell fell heavily in localised patches rather than widely; "heavy" also came in below 12" in all but a few localised instances, and generally I suspect 6" was closer to the mark - personally I'd file under "moderate".
We have had cold right through since December, but without any staggeringly cold months; two things drive this - the lack of sustained deep cold, and the occasional mild incursions. My own records for 1979 for example, show that from Jan 1 - Feb 21, 5C was breached on only two days. It was frosty on 30 nights in January, and 27 in February. We then had more heavy snow in March, and cover again in April, and at the start of May!
It's too soon to put together a complete post-mortem on the winter; March may provide some interesting footnotes. What we can say is that winter is unlikely to come in as cold as 1995/6 overall (the average that winter was 3.03C, and March came in at 4.5C)
-10c or below is hardly severe cold, though, considering that the record minimum in England is below -26. When was the last time we reached -15 in England? And even -15 is 11c warmer than the record minimum.
The one thing that has been incredible for me personally this winter has been the amount of days of snow cover - 25 in total so far, including the whole of the past 2 weeks (that's not the 9am Meto definition, and starts from the first day of cover in November). I have never seen that in my memory before - but then like you say, at 18 I'm hardly likely to remember the 80s! In Feb 91 I was 2 months old. But even so, the fact that in a memory of say 14 years this is the first time 2 weeks of snow have been on the ground is pretty impressive. Not only that, but at the beginning of December when we both had a good fall, this also stuck around for about a week I think, which these days is pretty rare.
As to days of snow falling: 24 so far, and the average in Leeming is 28 I believe. According to the Meto we should add on 5 extra days for altitude - I'm 150m higher so let's call that 35 days for this area, aprrox. That means we need another 11 days to break even the average! Which I suspect is very possible considering we have the 2nd half of Feb, March and April (perhaps May and June) but remember that's an average to meet there. Considering that this winter has been a lot snowier than recent winters (a LOT snowier) it puts it into perspective how un-snowy recent winters have been.
-
Thanks for that suggestion
I suppose the problem has a lot to do with the general southeast media bias, something which needs to be addressed in itself.
The other problem that I have is that we have our own parliament, which is set to at least gain more powers and possibly independence at the next referendum, so I think that a Scottish Met. Office is inevitable anyway.
Scotland is a nation, equal in status to England, although Scotland in fact has its own parliament along with Northern Ireland and Wales while England does not. Surely it makes sense to treat us as equals in union rather than as a region like Essex or Cumbria (No offense intended to anyone from there)?
Also, I'm not sure that the cost of a new met. office would (in the long run) be that great. In terms of the budget £20 million for a supercomputer (which, if I'm correct would be the main cost incursion and perhaps not even a neccesary one) is not enormous considering that the fairly minor proposal by the Green Party for the Housing Insulation Programme cost £33-100 million (£100million being the desired cost, £33million the amount that Swinney was prepared to pay).
Sorry for the Scottish Parliament references as I know this may leave some readers like this
Scotland is much more powerful than England. England can't really do anything by itself as it has no parliament.
Do you not think that if England had more independence, on a par with Scotland, it would reduce the need for the UK government to be so England-centred? It's not really a good idea to have such a range of different levels of power within one country.
It's all very well and good for the people in the S to claim there is no bias, in either the media or the metoffice. But as a proud northerner, I can say that this bias most definitely exists, and penetrates almost every aspect of communications. There is no doubt that the main focus is on the S, whilst the North and Scotland get forgotten. Snow forecasting up here was terrible compared to in the S. There was one day when they forecast 50cm of snow over the Pennines, but they clearly hadn't bothered to look at the radar because at 10pm it was looking pathetic and yet they still ramped it up on the forecast like there was no tomorrow. Now the national hatred of Yorkshire is well known but it goes for the whole of Northern UK. The fact is that the further N you went in this cold spell, the worse the snow was forecast (listen to Shetland Coastie!). It was ridiculous IMO and happens regularly. Not only that, we then get accused of basing all this on the fact that we "didn't see any snow" in this "appalling winter", despite the fact that I saw way more snow than the people who made all these comments. >(
-
And would it have been better forcast if the Met Office were based in Leeds? Or Los Angeles?
In fact, even if the MetO were based on the Moon their forecasts would not be any different.
Where a Met Office is based makes absolutely no difference whatsoever !
Can anyone see any point whatsoever for this thread?
Sorry but that's just not true! Local knowledge is vital when making forecasts. Type in the forecast for Madrid and you'll get terrible results in the winter - the temps are usually about 3c to high, owing to the fact that they ignore the very high altitudes of central Spain. Similarly, the climate of the Highlands is equally poorly made IMO.
-
Excellent post Tamara. The question for me, too, will be -
Will the PDO remain negative as in the 60s, or will it follow the ways of the past 2 coolings, i.e. short-lived events?
-
Everyone is entitled to an opinion - though if when the are expressed in a manner that excludes the possibility of other outcomes, they can come accross as rather arrogant. When another outcome does occur and the original opinionator attempts to shift their original position to make it look less incorrect, it all becomes a little irratating.
I'm sorry but I don't get this at all. As I said earlier, for all I have disagreed with SF in the past (and there have been many times!) he never changed the benchmark like people suggested and if you read an earlier post he said that sub-3c was looking very likely. He then pointed out that it was a Hale winter however, which I think is a fair point to make. And remember - we haven't breached 3c yet!
Nor has he excluded the possibility of other outcomes:
So, by any standards this winter is cold, though far from exceptionally. By recent standards it IS exceptional. I guess one could choose to take this one of two ways. It certainly breaches a floor that I had suspected had probably passed us by, but does it represent that such events are now as commonplace as once they were, or is it an outlier? Only time will tell, though I would remain very surprised indeed if we were to see anything even as remotely cold as this next year.I personally think it's a case of people ganging up on people whose opinions - probably close to the truth - aren't liked. Is the arrogance in the eye of the beholder perhaps?
Just to note, that if the 12z GFS came off, we would be back in there with a sub 3... however we need to see the ECM first.
-
OK, done the maths and we need February to come in at 2.0c to equal 85/86 which would put it as the joint-warmest hale winter on record.
Therefore 2008/09, whilst a below average winter, will almost certainly come out as the mildest hale winter ever, as I cannot see sub-2c being possible now!
FWIW my punt for February is now 3.2 (not that that's part of the competition btw!).
-
Good post TWS. I never watch forecasts on the TV these days and if I want one I just go on the internet and fast forward to the point where they actually begin to forecast, rather than nowcast (i.e about 2/3s of the way through).
-
Very true about the cloud breaking and the sun coming out - especially during mid February onwards. I remember walking around Christmas (just before the cold frosty spell set in) and thinking how the sun could hardly be noticed despite an almost entirely clear day. Today I went out into the garden and sat in a chair thinking how warm the sun felt! Very unscientific I know, but from now on the sun really kicks off exponentially. Therefore it will have an even bigger difference towards the end of the month. The upside of skies clearing is that night time minima are lower.
Whether it will be sub 3c or not will most likely be down to whether we can see a return to cold by the month's end, because this mild spell is certainly going to have drastic effects. Looking at the stratosphere situation it does look as though winter will have another "bite" at some point, but this may not arrive before March. Furthermore it seems prospects of even a half-decent northerly have faded today and the jet is looking a lot less amplified with a flatter NW'ly or even WNW'ly, not originating from a cold source.
IF we see a return to proper blocking towards the end of the month, a sub 3c month becomes a distinct possibility, but if the only cooler interlude we get is a flattened toppler, then this looks unlikely now IMO.
One thing's for sure - judging by your earlier post, this will be the first Hale winter that hasn't seen a sub 1c month (although whether it is the mildest hale winter ever is looking somewhat unlikely). I'll just go and have a look to see what we need to avoid this.
-
To both Yeti and TWS,
Unfortunately, I am not very good at putting my thoughts into words and even worse, onto paper! However, I will have a go, please bear with me whilst I probably ramble and bore everyone to death.
I am thinking of how things have been over the past 18/24 months, as a trend, rather than as a direct comparison. As the Good Book says "to compare is odious" and as my old driving instructor used to say "don't compare peas and carrots".
Anyway, this is what I am noting:
Winter 2007-2008 every month cooler than Winter 2006-2007
Winter 2008-2009 all figs not in yet, but looking to continue downward trend
Summer 2007 was cooler than Summer 2006
Summer 2008.....2 months hotter than Summer 2007, but over the whole year, 9 months in total were cooler than 2007.
My view is that this is a trend, that there is now more movement downwards than there is upwards.
It is what I would expect to see around a transition period from warming to cooling.
Have I made any sense?
PS This post has taken me an hour to concoct.
What you say is statistically true - but if I ask you this might it make you change your mind?
1998 6.1 9.6 15.2 10.6
1999 5.4 9.9 15.9 11.4
2000 5.4 9.2 15.7 10.7
2001 4.5 8.5 16.1 11.4
1998 to 2001 had progressively colder winters, and springs also trended down (as you describe data at the moment).
Conclusion? We were on a cooling trend.
But then things warmed up!
The point is that you simply cannot pick a couple of seasons and say that we are heading up or down. Show me 10 years that show an overall downward trend, and I will agree. But there isn't such data to be found, sadly!
Probability makes it well within the bounds of normality for 2 winters and summers in a row to be colder, but for there still to be an upward trend. Remember my analogy of the tide?
-
Stratos, that is an excellent post, extremely informative - and at the end, so true!
It's probably worth mentioning today's maxima, because they were widely progged around the 6-7c mark for this area. It's got to 8.8c here today - the 2nd warmest day of the winter so far. Only Fylingdales and Emley Moor have remained below 7c; both are at considerable altitude, and Dishforth broke double figures. I await minima to show a similar pattern tonight.
You made a comment in the January thread about people ignoring your posts and laughing at them (often without any basis other than being in the anti-AGW camp). Well for all you and I have disagreed, it would be a great shame for posts like the above to disappear, and I hope you don't take your bat home one day!
There are many on here I am sure that still value your contribution despite, as I say, disagreements at times.
-
Ireland has it's own currency (sort of), it's own unique passport, a completely separate legislature. It's like saying France has it's own met office. Hardly a robust argument I'm afraid.
As Osmposm says: if the Scots want to fund it, let them have it. I suspect that the start up and operating costs for NO marginal beenfit whatsoever would place it way down the list of priorities, even if we weren't in straitened times.
I agree with this. At the end of the day there IS an issue that needs to be addressed, but the answer is to take it up with the UKMET, and not just go and build another one at great expense. NR's argument is that devolution means that things such as currency cannot be decided by Scotland, but "less important" things such as health can (this creates the comparison with Ireland, because both have the power to deal with more trivial matters such as the weather). However, as I said earlier, Scotland already has a metoffice, whereas Ireland has nothing else to fall back on.
The way to solve this issue is to take it up with the UKMET, or to go back to having more regional stations, including one in the Great City of Inverness
-
Another thing that no one has mentioned is the BBC graphics on the TV. Now if you notice about half of the forecast covers the SE, zoomed right in, about 10 miles off the ground with loads of places marked on. As you go further N, you are more and more "skimmed over" and further away from the ground. You are lucky if they even reach Northern Scotland, and it's tilted so it's incredibly difficult to see once you are N of the Central Lowlands. This cannot be fair.
My take on this is that EVERYONE in the UK has the right to an equal high standard of weather forecast, and steps should be taken to make this possible. Saying "well hardly anyone lives in Nern Scotland so they may as well skim over it" isn't really the right attitude as even some of the tiniest of the Hebrides have 20 ppl on them! (Whether they have TV yet is another matter
) -
my other concern with the 'tune into your local bbc radio station' is that we don't have a local bbc radio station!!!
bbc radio Scotland has to cover everywhere from the northern isles to dumfries while Berkshire get their own station!!
We have five times the population of Berkshire and a much greater area yet the bbc sees us as equal
I don't think that the listeners in Berkshire will have anything like the differences in weather from other parts of Berkshire that parts of Scotland do
Not really a weather point but I just felt the need to add it
That is a disgrace! How it can be fair for Essex to have a radio station but then only one for the whole of Scotland, a country 2/3 of the size of England, is absurd!
I don't know how southerners even have the face to claim there is no bias wrt N and S (I think the bias is more SE compared to the rest of the UK because I don't see the West Country getting much of a look in either most of the time).
If you go independent, can Yorkshire join in?
-
I can't see whats insulting to be honest. I am posting a fact that in recent weeks much of the action has been to the S due to fronts moving in from SW England. So in my opinion the focus of the Met O warnings concentrating on the S have been perfectly apt especially as I looked through snow depths last night in Scotland/ N England.
Like I said earlier how many warnings has there been for Aberdeenshire in previous winters? Did you ever hear members in the S complaining about the Met O being bias? The answer is no because frankly we couldn't careless!
Even those snow depth records are biased, because there is no way I have seen as little snow as has been reported on there!
I stand by the fact that the S has NOT seen as much snow as the N (generally) this cold spell, but it appears that way because of the media and Metoffice. I have seen more snow than Peterborough, London, Hampshire etc. - probably about the same as Northants.
There is no way that most of the action has been in the S, it's just that S of the Yorkshire border is the only action that has been reported.
Not only that, but the N has held onto the snow for a lot longer. Most places in the S have seen rain and milder temps to wash away the snow, but the N is/has been able to hold onto much lower maxes and last night was the first time I have seen rain for weeks.
Just jealousy because we got more snowThere is no way you have had as much snow as up here, I'm sorry!
-
The SE bias was epitomised recently when snow had fallen for the 2nd time in London, as well as many other parts of Britain, and they were discussing what to do to get the latest information.
"Now of course local radio stations are keeping us all up to date - just tune into radio Berkshire, BBC Essex, radio Cambridgeshire, radio Kent and Southern Counties radio, all will give you the latest....."
Meanwhile I had BBC radio York on and schools were closing all over the place and heavy snow was falling outside - but of course we don't feature in national news bulletins :unsure:
Fascinating stuff, & there does indeed seem to be two threads running through this thread - i. should Scotland have its own METO & ii. is there is bias of reporting gravitating to the south, & in particular the SE/London/Home Counties.As I said & others know, the METO has a presence in Aberdeen, I think ostensibly to report for those offshore - fishermen, oil platforms etc. Also for those who like heading off into the mountains. I think they were planning to close Aberdeen & relocate all services to Exeter. A local & vigourous campaign by local politicians & other interested bodies persuaded (at least for now) the METO to keep the Aberdeen office open, on the basis that it was better to have someone "nearby" to provide a more accurate local forecast, better able to detect changes in the weather that might cause a problem & facilitate a warning.
Yes, I do agree there is a "southern" bias, but that isn't restricted to the weather forecasting or reporting. I agreed with the poster who was annoyed at the news comment of "the worst winter in 20yrs". Yes maybe in the SE England, but it didn't specify that. It generalized, suggesting it was the worst UK winter weather in 20yrs.
Aberdeen for example had a foot of snow fall around end Feb/start March 2006 & that was our worst Mar snowfall in 50yrs - don't recall much in the "UK" national news about that. Nor did it report the complete gridlock here (at least I didn't see it) a couple of Fridays back due to the snow.
I suppose I can see that there is always more news where the centres of population are, but nevertheless if you are presenting the news, weather or whatever for ALL of the UK, you should not be concentrating constantly on one area of the country.
No doubt, everything in the UK is very London/SE England-centric.
Just my tuppence. :lol:
The thing is that Aberdeen is a centre of population, being the size of York and the 3rd biggest city in Scotland.
-
Thanks Yeti, I do know my own county pretty well, and if you think down-at-heel Maryport is one of the most deprived areas in the north, then I'm astonished. In fact, if you think anywhere in Cumbria compares to some of the country's most deprived areas then I have to question the worth of anything you say.
You write with great confidence, yet I'm not entirely sure it's warranted. Off-topic I know, but valid.
Haha point taken, I couldn't help having a crack at Maryport
There are much worse places in the NE (and Yorkshire). Although I do seem to remember reading somewhere that Cumbria was one of the poorest counties?
Actually, having said that, I've just seen this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unite..._GDP_per_capita
The NW comes in as slightly wealthier than Yorkshire and the Humber, and I would imagine that Cumbria is the wealthiest county in the NW considering that it takes into account Merseyside, Greater Manchester etc.
-
Heres another way of looking at snow depths during our recent cold spell.
Click on the link below and select the location followed by history and then snow depths.
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/ukukstdf.htm
A couple of examples but during this cold spell Aberdeen had 13cm lying snow, Wick 8cm, Peterborough 15cm. Now I think its fair to say Aberdeen is a fairly snowy location in Scotland but as you can see Peterborough had more snowfall. I obviously didn't select Aviemore for obvious reasons because if Peterborough was at 228 ASL we would of had nearly 60cm of snow just from the atlantic storm alone!
Yes but your point was that it's been an appalling winter in the N and yet we have definitely seen more snow. I have had 25 days of snow lying this winter; 24 falling, maximum depth of 10 inches (Leeds Bradford airport had 11 inches at one point) and there is still almost full cover in the garden today with 8cm in places. And yet none of this snow was well forecast, or had a mention in the media. The only places in the N that have missed out are Western Coasts and nearby, and Eastern Coasts but even these saw lots of snow on Thursday night. London overall has seen a lot less snow because it nearly all fell on one day, and there has been nothing like 2 weeks of snow on the ground.
I still think the S has seen less snow than the N this cold spell, general.
-
Wow Aviemore had alot of snow now theres a surprise.
Some of the posts on this thread are just silly TBH. How many times through the years has the Met O put out warnings for Scotland compared to S England?
Some people need to get a grip and realise that snowfall In S England is less frequent than parts of Scotland and due to the population can have a greater impact. If a tornado struck Oklahoma which then moved onto New York which do you feel would recieve the greater media attention!!
The point is it's not just Aviemore. I have seen more snow than East Anglia (still have 10cm now in the garden) and this never got a mention. Nor were any of the warnings correct; ramps of 50cm for this area despite the radar showing 10cm max. In fact most of the snow fell when warnings weren't issued or were less severe.
The fact is that the N has generally seen more snow this cold spell, but the media would lead you to think the opposite. I do take your point though about it being much rarer in the S than up here and in Scotland.
A Question For Next Winter
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
OK I agree it's difficult to draw a line.
But 91 saw the 15 isotherm and very cold uppers for a long time, which we haven't really seen since. 50s to 69; 79 to 91 were all favourable in this respect, and even the in between period (Jan 72?) was favourable in this respect at times.