Yeti

True in terms of the Easterly, but personally I would rather see the low tracking right across us with mega hill snow; unfortunately none of these easterlies have associated deep cold pools and so they are unlikely to produce much convection. But then again, that's personal preference of someone who lives near and regularly climbs high hills

Very poor ECM unfortunately, the low fails to get far enough east and hill snow looks like being at more of a premium http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm1441.gif

5.4c

It's not often you see a chart like this is it: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1141.png

If the GFS is right, there could be some extreme snowfall over the Pennines and other Northern hills next week: http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1144.png http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1141.png A bit of a cold zonality setup really, which obviously is always good in terms of chances for northern blocking later (such as happened in January this year). Low level snow looks highly unlikely unless this blocking does develop perfectly, but with the storm taking a track like that, above 400-500m conditions could be absolutely horrendous with prolonged, driving snowfall giving blizzard conditions and drifting in the strong winds. I will definitely be heading to the Dales next Sunday if the storm does track as per GFS, as conditions could be quite incredible over the hills :lol:

ECM uppers only really conducive to hill snow http://en.vedur.is/photos/atlant_evr_hitas...27_0000_132.png Of course if you're desperate then you could look at the WMC Moscow for some deep cold air off the Atlantic: http://91.121.94.83/modeles/wmc/run/wmc-1-120.png B)

Can people PLEASE stop putting words into my mouth? That is exactly what I said, Azores92. I NEVER claimed lowland snow to be a possibility, nor on lower hills - but in the Pennines and northwards you will find many hills that do not fall into that aforementioned category.

That's why I said "on the hills"! No sarcasm at all in that post - even the ECM would have some decent mountain snow eventually. Lowland snow, at least of the settling variety, is pretty much a right off, but on the hills there could well be some significant falls.

Yep The Dales and Lakes are going to be absolutely pasted next week! Regardless of whether the ECM or GFS has it right, the uppers will easily be cold enough for snow on the higher hills. :o

I cannot believe that no one has pointed out yet the fact that we're looking at 20 years out of 350. So let's look at those stats again: So that's 3 out of 20 years as opposed to 7 out of 350! To do the maths: Let's say that X is the probability of one of those exceptionally warm winters being produced. That means X = 7/350 = 0.02 (2% chance of a winter like that being produced before 1989). Therefore out of 100 winters you would expect 3 or 4 to be exceptionally mild, in this case such that it could become one of the "top ten". However we have got 3 in 20 years! So to work out the probability of this: 20C3 x (0.02)3(0.98)17 = 0.006 So the probability of the recent warm winters occurring completely by chance is just 0.6%, as opposed to 2% BEFORE 1989. That's very significant. A good analogy would be watching cars for a day. Imagine if all the colours were evenly spread until the last 10 minutes of observation, at which point 20 red cars come past. You could say that this 20 is less than the 100 you've seen all day, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been a huge increase in the number of red cars passing!

Yes, as I think I mentioned yesterday there is likely to be some very significant snowfall for the hills coming up in early March, which is nice to see and we will see the Pennines/Lakes/Scotland above 400/500m nicely replenished That, of course, is pretty much shown by all possible outcomes at the moment, with -2 to -5 uppers and frequent, potent weather fronts as well as low thicknesses and geopotential heights

Yep, also to note that there is some serious snow on the way again for the Pennines northwards above about 400-500m - particularly on Tuesday. Much more exciting weather on the way - little chance of low level lying snow, but on the mountains it could get fantastic

No, Tamara is right in that it does only tell half the story - if you look at the CET stats it only shows 3c - but there have been month-long periods below 3 (which is pretty much as TWS says anyway). Thus the conclusion can only be that sub 3 is still possible.

Well, you might call it carelessness, but I'm afraid you have skipped over a few points rather conveniently in places! We have already had this discussion; this winter we have had various 31-day periods of BELOW 3c - now granted, they didn't fall within calendar boundaries, and there is no guarantee that this can or will ever happen (even getting a 0c month would not be a guarantee that 3c would happen again in the future). However, the evidence is very much against the idea that sub 3 is impossible, because if we can get a month long of below 3c, we can get a calendar month of 3c. Again, if you drove from A to C via B, and broke down between A and B, you wouldn't conclude that this was no longer possible between B and C. This winter had just as much chance of a 31 day period falling within calendar boundaries as it did within the actual dates seen. The evidence is there that sub 3 is possible. Your analogy about running doesn't really hold true either; if you had run a minute, any minute, below 6', then you could conclude that you can run under 6'. Be fair, I have never heard that singular definition before (and would perhaps take issue with it, because of months like Feb 86). However, if that is indeed what you mean, then you couldn't be more right and I certainly wouldn't claim that this winter has seen sustained cold and snow (and never have done if you read my earlier posts). We have been fairly lucky this winter in terms of snow, especially considering that in the first 10 days of February they were nearly all rather marginal, if significant, events. "Marginal" isn't compatible with "very cold and snowy". This is a bit of carelessness on your part Stratos - read my post again, and you will find two comments about 05/06, including this one: There is no "about" in there. It is an emphatic assertion that we could not get colder than 05/06 - no mention of boundaries, no mention of "perhaps", or even "virtually". So here you WERE wrong and this is where you have backed down the most - you once claimed that 05/06 was right at the end of the normal curve; now it's 08/09 (probably!). Now again, be fair, did I not say "that depends on how you define 'cold'"? I believe I did - and in terms of severe cold, we cannot claim such a month - at least, on the par with the "winters of old" with sub 1c, 0c, -1c (and haven't I always pointed this out?). But then again, you could define cold as sub -3, and probably find only 2 or 3 months in the whole series that class as "cold". Conversely, define it as below average and around half will turn up "cold". Your position has changed a bit, admit it - at least with respect to 05/06 which I have conveniently pointed out to you . On the other hand there has been too much attachment to sub 3, something which I mentioned recently in the January thread. I repeat from there, that I harbour more than small suspicions that if and when sub 3c is achieved, it will be the "end of the even larger teapot" for a few on here, which would be ridiculous. I think the absolute bottom is about 2c at the moment, and obviously rising (if not year-on-year). However, that doesn't make even a month of 2.3c a refutation of current thought. B) This wins the award for the most dramatic analogy of all dramatic analogies! It does hold up rather well (although doesn't Tamara have children?) even if you do presume to know rather a lot about me. And we could add many other good novels to that list . I think Roger's post is very succinct and "straight-to-the-point", however, with regards to this final paragraph! Regards, David

Completely agree Nick - to me there is little or no sign of decent snowfall away from high ground I'm afraid. We saw a setup like this at the beginning of December, where we wanted things to move E, but like you say we have a British trough locked in between a mid-Atlantic high and the E Euro high - so there's little chance of eastward movement. Of course, things will gradually move eastwards, but by the end there will be little cold wrapped in the system, especially considering that even the original burst in the Atlantic is not that cold. My guess we will end up in the centre of a LP with damp and not particularly cold air, with hill snow however In March we need much better synoptics than this, and even in mid-Jan there wouldn't be that much potential.

Yes, and thank goodness the rule of law occasionally listens to what others have to say; especially where true facts are concerned...

Stratos - how about looking back in this thread and reading the ones I posted yesterday? There are plenty such assertions I'm afraid, about 05/06 was as cold as it could get (and now 08/09 is as cold as it could get). I don't intend to annoy; rather to show that really Tamara is right about your previous intimations.

I agree with everything in that post Roger except the last bit. Just because we haven't had a major volcanic eruption in recent years is no evidence to infer that another one is about to arrive; it's a bit like saying that every time I fail to throw a 6, the chance of throwing a 6 increases. Other than that, a good post

Come on Mondy, that graph's of the last 450,000 years; we're talking about change in the past 50. How can such a huge timeline like that possibly hope to show the amount of detail required? My bedroom's fairly tidy at the moment - but getting much messier. So if you made a graph showing the past 10 years and how messy it's been, it would show up as below average. Can you hope for the past 3 days to show up? Of course not! Show me a graph of the past 150 years that shows that we are cooling, and then I will believe you.

What? That seems like a very contradictory post; I suggest you read it again. That was blatantly not true; we have just had a month at 3.0c. At no point, at least to someone who realised that even 5-10 years of climate data does nowhere near cover anything like the full range of probabilities on our normal curve, did sub 4c look "very unlikely"; perhaps only 1-2 standard deviations were covered on our normal curve, at best, during that particular time period. ...Except for the fact that this year it happened at the beginning of December and more especially at the end of December/beginning of January (a case of making a statement based on too little data). This was a claim that 05/06 was as cold a winter as it is now possible to get. 08/09 will probably come at somewhere between 3.4 and 3.5, which compared to 4.1 is quite a bit less. Certainly it has proven that 05/06 was NOT as bad as it could get. Here was the same emphatic claim made again, with the added intimation that it 05/06 might never be repeated. That depends how you define "cold", but December came in well below average and deems that statement at the least dubious, and at the most ridiculous. Again a rather vague statement with the word "soon", but if "soon" counts as even 5 years, then such a situation seems some way off, even though I do see it as an inevitability at some point (not "soon", though, in my mind). This year as seen significant, widespread and persistent lowland snow, not "little or none". I actually agree with much of what SF says, and he undoubtedly makes some very good and worthwhile points - which I hope he would admit I have always been the first to point out. But in his evident, honourable and true desire to be objective rather than whimsical; rational rather than emotional, I hope he will appreciate my pointing out that he has indeed changed his song, perhaps not without a slight element of disguise, this winter. Some of the above quotes demonstrate this; where once he claimed that 05/06 was as bad as it could get, now 08/09 is as bad as it could get (and no doubt if 09/10 comes in colder, this will be as bad as it can get). We are certainly warming, and the chances of of reaching cold months must inherently decrease as a result. I cannot agree more with that. However, I think there is too little evidence to make statements such as "this is as bad as it can get" at this stage

Here you go From 2006: ... ... ... (it got worse) ... ... ... ... I can't be bothered to look through any more threads, but there you have it, particularly in the last quote. 4c looking "very unlikely"? Be fair, that was a grossly erroneous statement.

Firstly, don't be so harsh on yourself! Those times aren't much slower than what I can get and I'm 18! That's rather beside the point, though, because warming takes place over a long period of time. The fact that we can achieve 31 days at 2.8c shows that we can get a calendar month below 3c, despite recent warming, because we do not warm year-on-year (as you know) and this year has proven that sub 3c is still possible. Far less likely, but still possible - which at the end of the day, is the only point I ever made. Remember my analogy of driving from A to C via B? That is a good point, Stratos, and one which I have made a few times on here. What is the real obsession with sub 3c anyway? Even if we got a month at, say, 2.6c (which I would argue is still, with a bit of luck, just within reach) where would that leave us? A full 3c from Feb 86 and a long way from even 91 (hardly the coldest of months). Even if we got sub 3, it wouldn't change my opinion at all wrt recent warming, as it would all lie within the bounds of natural warming. I gave an anology of the incoming tide in the climate thread - you can stand on the beach and see the waves rising and falling, but you know that the overall trend is up. Sadly, I bear more than a slight suspicion that a few on here would take a sub 3 month as a refutation of the entire AGW hypothesis, and at least of its direct effect on the British Isles. Yep... with every five years, at least, that pass, the overall trend rises... and we stand less and less chance of seeing the train arrive. Again, using the analogy of the tide, the chance of a receding wave reaching "that almost-smothered pebble" decreases (until at some point, it is permanently submerged, although I don't believe we are at that stage yet). It might, but then again I doubt it. The evidence we have tells us that it is - the question is whether we can achieve another 31 day run (this perhaps undoubtedly) WITHIN the boundaries of one calendar month (this relies on an element of chance). It is still possible, but this winter has shown that it's now not just down to a case of getting the right temperatures - we now have to get them at exactly the right time to produce the goods. Another way of looking at it, is that if we achieved a 31 day period of sub 2c, there could be little doubt that wherever the calendar boundaries were placed, a sub 3c month would be returned. Sadly, I do suspect that sub 2c is well and truly behind us (and before I am trampled on, it is a *suspicion*). In other words, the correct timing of cold spells is now perhaps becoming a necessity in terms of achieving sub 3... Regards David

That much is true. So 30th of December to 30th of January gives us a CET of 2.8c. That's just one day from an actual calendar month! Whilst I completely agree that we are warming and it gets more and more difficult over time, the fact that we are capable of getting a 31 day period below 3c (and we just have) shows that we are perfectly capable of getting a calendar month with the same result, end of. It is completely impossible to argue otherwise - if January had started a day earlier, we would have had it; next year, or in however many years, such a cold spell may and could happen a day later (or equivalent) and give us an actual sub 3 month. Most definitely not, as shown above. If we can get a 31 day period sub 3, we can get a calendar month sub 3. Of course, as we warm, overall the chances of sub 3 decrease (although not year on year, more over a 10 year-or-so basis). However, this winter has shown it is still possible, and it would foolish, frankly, to argue otherwise. We have come as close as it is possible to get to having a sub 3 month (missing out by one day!). If you're driving from point A to point C via point B, and your car breaks down between A and B, you can't say that it will never happen between B and C, can you?