cyclonic happiness

Did you really say "willn't"?

i know it's gonna happen but............. 'There must be missing data'

It'll flip back. The whole Arctic cannot be hemmed in on all side for too long, before it bursts open somewhere. (hopefully in this direction)

We grow all the food for our on-site cafe, and they're still getting lettuce too! Funnily enough, it's not been cold enough for the winter lettuce varieties, which bolted to seed, this is so weird.

I have noticed that my Witch-hazel is only just coming into flower now. Some years it's been over by now. I think they hang back as if they know worse weather is to come. I'm in the same trade as you Jethro, it's very, very weird atm, and the amounts of pests and diseases around this winter, is phenomenal. Only last week we had an entire bed of ornamental brassicas ravaged by cabbage white butterfly caterpillars, and they were swarming! More slugs and snails than ever, more botrytis and blackspot. It's horrible, I'm praying for frost!

This is more like it :-D ^^^^

I wish that the GFS hadn't have been upgraded. I know it's better for forecasting, but it has killed off one of the most vibrant and fun parts of this forum. We all love to mull over charts in FI (regardless of what you say, you know you do it! :-D) to see phantom easterlies, or raging blizzards and minus ten 850s, but now we just have the monotony that is the British weather. I used to love seeing all the crap in FI, I'd go to work with a spring in my step after seeing the latest charts, and imagining all the lovely cold and icey days that could go along with it. I don't want to see the truth, I want FI to lie through its teeth and give me my phantom easterly!!! ><

The weather is getting more and more dull and boring. We are going to be owed so badly by the weather gods!! ><

Yep, we have some daffs out at the nursery where I work!! I'm hoping we do get a decent winter, it'll be three years without snow in march

Annoyingly, the Midlands doesn't even get enough rain to get excited about. I don't think I've ever been so bored with the model output as the past 2 years.

You always get periods like this, and usually just before a major pattern change. That there isn't an epic cold spell showing in FI, is probably a good sign :-D

it's absolute blizzard conditions here. Heavy snow and gales.We have an inch already. Gonna take some video. Stunning! :-D

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif Wow, big gains in Scandinavia over the last few days, must be near record snow cover for the time of years, and it's not even Winter yet :-D

Quite a lot of stuff coming through the Cheshire gap, i wonder if it's gonna be a bit more eventful than we all thought, tonight? :-P

Heavy sleet shower passing through here now, bodes well for later. The wind is also really strong again.

The forecast is going for 60 mph winds running down the far east of the region, just imagine if there was snow in that too? We're so unlucky here aren't we? People keep anging on about how wonderful 2010 was, and yet we only had half an inch of snow that cold spell. Seems like we can rarely get over an inch in any set-up nowadays. Never used to be like that when I was a kid in the 80s, the northerlies were potent enough to bring snow from the direct north over the entire length of the Pennines, and still give us a few good inches of snow. The one thing I've learnt about climate change, it's that it makes the weather in the Midlands impotent and dull!

The Midlands is taking a real battering, the huge sign from Fort Dunlop in Brum has blown down, trees down, lorries turned over, numerous powercuts. I hope people stay safe! https://www.facebook.com/wearefreeradio/photos/pcb.1325439484150549/1325437347484096/?type=3&theater

We never get anything exciting here. Always amazes me how the lowest mountain range in europe (The Cambrian) has the biggest rain shadow. The Welsh hills can kill rain better than the Alps! We will never get a decent fall of snow every again......

Bedworth does seem to have a lot of power cuts generally though

No, I'm in town, but it's a very small town and right at the top of a hill

Just seen the whole sky to the east flashing, and the power flicked, there must have been a transformer blowing? Awaiting power cuts

looking pretty scary for tomorrow evening. We get 70mph gales maybe once every 15 years here and they cause death and damage. Stay safe!

Trees and fences etc, don't get blown about, so tend to be weaker. And dead wood and branches etc aren't tidied up as much and are left on trees nowadays, so are liable to be blown down. If there are going to be 70mph winds across the middle Midlands, it'll be very damaging indeed.

60mph winds would be more damaging to parts of the Midlands which rarely see winds over 40mph, even on the windiest days. It's very worrying for me and my work (old glasshouses over 60 years old)

Any updates about tomorrow's severe gales? The Midlands (well, around here) rarely get winds of 60mph, so it could cause a huge amount of damage and chaos. We're all understandably looking towards the weekend, but there's something extreme just 24 hours away?