Yeti

1. January 11th 2001 - Nearly 30cm of snow. Frontal snowfall 0200-0900 heavy 2. December 31st 2000 (the previous NY's eve!) - 20cm. Frontal snowfall 1500-2100 heavy then turned to rain. After two magnificent snow events in only a fortnight, it has been rather poor since. The best event since was the January 2004 thundersnow event with around 10-15cm after two troughs. Other notable events include Dec 2005 E'ly for the excitement factor, March 2006 frontal event, though not living up to expectations, and Feb-March 2006 generally for excellent wintry weather - numerous ice days and often with some settling snow.

Warmer air arriving here now to end a poor cold spell (though one that lived up to its equally poor expectations)

No those were taken on the Hills west of us in Jan 2001. I certainly remember a HUGE amount and it was one of the best snow events for many years, but those pics and their dates were given to me by my mother who is NOT the most reliable source of information!

I meant overnight which was a damp squib: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6297439.stm Agreed during the day more fell.

Haha well said definately good advice there. I think expectations nearly always outdo results these days - weather warnings coming out left, right and centre, the beeb over-ramping it's all been done before!

Now that's more like a decent snowfall - a proper blanket covering the whole grass, well done

Well I've just taken I nice wintry walk for 50 mins - very crisp and frosty. I went to the top of Harrogate - about 20m higher up - and some of the dusting we had was still there! And with a view right across to the North York Moors I could see there was a fair bit of snow on the tops.

Yes well done to you for sticking your neck out and getting it right! Haha I was surprised myself at how little Kent had, considering 10cm was forecast for hilly areas.

I'm truanting . No lol I have exam leave even though the exams have finished Sounds odd I know but don't go back until Monday. I don't recall denying people's pleasure from the snow ; from my last post I quote: "Glad you enjoyed it" which isn't exactly indicative of ignorance to supercell's enjoyment... Although sometimes it is hard to imagine how some people are over the moon with 2cm when it is nothing unusual here. However, I was not aware of how little snow the SE has had - whilst I knew it was not as much as here, comments like "3cm, most snow for 3 years" were unbelievable to me as I could not imagine so little. Forgive me for early assumptions. Sometimes I do feel that seeing as I am younger than most on here, I am not taken as seriously, sometimes getting patronising responses, though this is to be expected. It was difficult to be positive about this cold spell from my point of view (and you can see PP shared the same difficulty) and so when I saw people over-ramping 2 nights ago I was sceptical and negative towards a snowy outcome (some people were mentioning 10cm) which was not unjustified. Some people gave an angry response towards the negativity, deeming it "mild ramping" and so when the cold spell did turn out to be a damp squib for Northern areas it was difficult not to be sarcastic - I did not want to be negative and could not be positive so I had to opt for something in between to avoid a re-run of 2 nights ago. Clearly this did not work either! As for antagonism, I was not aware of any hostility. If there was/is, then do point it out to me via a PM as I would not wish it to continue. Obviously in writing there is no tone of voice and so sometimes it can read very differently to what was intended! And finally about not seeing much snow in England - this is not strictly true, though it is of the past 5 years - in January 2001 we recorded the scenes below! Quite impressive as you can see (30cm at our house, up to 40 on surrounding hills, of which these photos were taken). As I say if there is an issue then PM me so it can be sorted out. I need to clean the house now though so may not get a quick response!

I think it depends on your definition of a good cold spell. For me, <5cm is poor, 5-7cm reasonable, 7-10cm good and anything above that very good. Excellent is 20cm + IMO which does happen here every 5 years or so. I think the snow has to "cover the grass" for me for it to be good, I have always used the grass in the garden as a boundary. It looks so much better when the garden is blanketed than when you have intrusive green freckles poking their rude noses out of the snow.

Does 2cm count as a pasting? Glad you enjoyed it though.

4.6c A mostly mild month but a colder spell around the 10th to 15th.

Just looking at all the ppl who say best cold spell for several years snow-wise e.g. SE London areas and I am astonished! Have we not seen better ones in the past 5 years eg Jan 04, Dec 05, Feb/March 06? Or is 5cm of snow really that rare down south these days?

Misunderstanding - I added that later for everyone to see with the "you" referring to all rather than you in particular - don't worry no one could say that this was better than last March And yes at least it has broken the bad pattern, if that only.

Oh dear I see now that the feb severe spell is beginning to become a certainty by some lol! You might be interested in this - the weather in Harrogate for March last year - you can see how much colder and snowier it was and compare the months! weather.xls

It's also sickening to see the rest of Europe absolutely pasted and we are struggling for 2cm. The coldest air always gets pushed to the S into Europe and Britain is always on the fringes.

Agreed there. Your earlier post was also thought provoking, there always seems to be something not right. How many times these days do we see tons of showers near the coast falling as sleet/rain and then inland, where they would fall as snow, they do not reach? It's becoming a bit of a no win situation, a N'ly.

Have to agree there, so many ppl ramped it up to the high heavens and said things like "you just wait for this evening" even when it was always going to be the wrong side of marginal. The morning after then brought all the "winter's over" posts.

Hi all, I thought I would create a thread so you could all post your views on how you think this cold spell has been. As for me, I have seen little in the way of very cold temperatures and snowfall (one dusting, one spinkling, and a daily max on Wednesday of 5.5c ). For this reason I do not think that it was any decent cold spell - indeed it was rather pathetic here in the North. Country wide and it seems that the most snowfall seen was 6cm which again, considering that it was not widespread and involved "hit and miss" snow showers was not particularly impressive. At first I thought that this was an indication of sad times. A NE'ly in January nearly always delivers well for my area and even more so for the NE (Durham and Northumberland). However, we must not forget that this was not a normal NE'ly resulting from a Scandinavian high; it was a more of a modified N'ly flow which is altogether very different - the air was warmed by its longer track and so was never going to be as promising. There are two other reasons why it was not as cold as a normal N'ly or NE'ly - firstly, the HP was weak over GL and the main blocking arose from the mid-Atlantic block, and this resulted in there being warmer air trapped in the set up - hence the milder temperatures. Furthermore, the SSTs were very high for this time of year over the North Sea, which was probably another reason why the NE saw hail/sleet instead of snow. Although the picture was different for the SE, as far as I am concerned this was a poor cold spell, but one which lived up to its initial expectations - it was never going to be anything spectacular. At least it has broken a pattern which looked unbreakable and brought the odd flake to many parts of the country; more than that in some places. A welcome break from mild moosh. What do others think? And can anyone find a chart with a similar mid-Atlantic blocking setup and weak HP over GL to see if the temps were similar to this spell? Yeti.

-0.8, sunny, frosty. Widespread ice.

Minimum overnight: -3.5c Clear, sharp frost, crisp, sunny etc. Currently -2.2c

What everyone seems to forget is that nature is (or was) balanced. There are (were) enough plants to cope with minor volcano eruptions, and with all other forms of natural CO2 emissions. Generally, this kept the CO2 emissions down, or at least in balance with the amount removed from the atmosphere. A large volcano disrupted the balance, and this had an effect on the climate (though the ash from the volcano probably had a much greater cooling effect). But life on Earth has not evolved to cope with human emissions of C02, and we do not produce aDoh a dumb swear filter got the better of me So we are disrupting the balance unsustainably IMO.

drizzle 2.8c

Most of snow gone, 4.1c. Now very light rain

I'm going for a FREEZING March, but little idea beyond that. The synoptics look very blocked atm so will go with cold! :o I enjoy reading your forecasts, thanks.