Iceni

Who's got an invitation to stay with some very old friends in Pratteln Switzerland then? MEEEEEE At least I'm going to get some snow action in the Northern Hemisphere in the near future. Haven't even looked it up on Google Earth yet — daren't in case it's going to be a disappointment. So if anyone knows the place is ok tell me now. Otherwise ignorance is bliss. Can this be snow? http://www.gga-pratteln.ch/ext_cams/augst.png?1414775990821

Slightly OT but your post made me giggle. I suppose you'd be too young to have heard the Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention song with the words "Watch out where the huskies go and don't you eat that yellow snow..." :rofl:

Oh please God not another winter like last year (and this year) we can't have that much bad luck.

Mixed day bright warmish sunshine then almost horizontal rain… and boy is that wind cold now. I needed gloves. Just hope there's no powercuts, but heard on the news a woman has been killed in Central London. Which surprised me — yes I know there are more people around, but thought trees in London were fairly well-maintained. Unless their roots have been disturbed by road works and telecoms digging. Poor lady.

Oh give it a rest. THERE HAS BEEN NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR 17 YEARS, 11 MONTHS. http://www.climatedepot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1711years-300x168.png Just stop insulting our intelligence.

Especially from below… "This map shows the locations of geothermal flow underneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica that were identified with airborne ice-penetrating radar. The dark magenta triangles show where geothermal flow exceeds 150 milliwatts per square meter, and the light magenta triangles show where flow exceeds 200 milliwatts per square meter. Letters C, D and E denote high melt areas: in the western-most tributary, C; adjacent to the Crary mountains, D; and in the upper portion of the central tributaries, E. Credit: University of Texas Institute Geophysics."

Not quite as much of a contrast, but I've phoned friends in Cambridge 20 miles away and told them about the 6" of snow out in the countryside and they've gone "What snow?" When we make the trip into the city, the snow's vanished about a 1 mile radius all around it - the Urban Heat Island effect in action.

The DE is perfectly reasonable. It's not scaremongering to say that billions of ash particles in the atmosphere will block out what sunlight there is in the NH over the winter months. Yes of course they all exaggerate to sell newspapers but it's better than the MetO forecasting a BBQ summer or saying that A/W 2010 would be unusually mild. Councils base their seasonal planning on the MetO, not the DE and we ran out of salt.

Not really. I remember lots of family outings on August Bank Holidays where we sat in a steamed up car grimly munching sandwiches while the rain slashed down. In fact, most of them were like that. One of them was a trip to Arundel Castle in our little woody mini traveller. It was packed and we'd parked just off the drive through the parkland. A LandRover passed and stopped and this elderly gent got out and it was the Earl himself. He said he had some stables where we could eat our picnic and to follow him. So we sat on straw bales watching the rain.

Oh well. Whatever. It has definitely been AUTUMN here for the past couple of weeks. Even the post lady remarked about it this morning. Leaves are turning, berries are red. Maybe people in more urban places don't realise, but out in the sticks, it's like late September. We had to have a fire last night in the living room. And Nathan Rao is quite right. After a massive volcano eruption in the Philippines, the Selbourne naturalist Gilbert White recorded the famous 'year without a summer' in the early 1800s.

That would have been 2003. Got to 38C here. The trick with melons is to use a 'hot bed' to grow them in. Basically it's a compost heap which heats up and keeps the roots warm.

Perhaps it's our altitude... which is quite high for E Anglia. None of the blackberries are ready but we were picking lovely ripe ones when we visited Sutton Hoo on the Deben estuary. Don't know about ground frosts but noticed heavy dews at sunset on the lawn. It just feels like late September and usually the rowan berries only last a few days because the birds are hungry by the time they're ripe. But they've been red for a week or so and look lovely - perhaps we'll be able to enjoy the sight of them for another few weeks. I hope we have a lovely winter with lots of snow and frost.

It's definitely a whole month forward here in Suffolk. Looks like late September — the hawthorn and rowan berries are all red, but this year lasting as the birds haven't stripped them. Poplars are beginning to yellow and fall off the trees. Another strange thing was my Autumn raspberries were over by the end of July. They're supposed to be late August/September. I'm wondering whether we're in the early stages of another Little Ice Age — it was characterised by short summers.

It's not your imagination. I live in Suffolk and have never known such early red hawthorn and rowan berries. Usually they don't last long because by that time the birds' other food has dried up, and they get eaten, but this year they're still on the trees looking lovely. Noticed quite a few yellow poplar leaves beginning to fall and the chestnuts are loaded with conkers. And I've had to wear a jumper for my dog walks for the past week.

Big booms and forked lightning as the storm passed right over, now heading off east. Poor dog wet himself in the kitchen luckily not on the carpets. Must say this has been the perfect summer from my point of view — when it's rained, it's been mostly at night or early morning and I haven't had to get the hose down to the veg garden once. I'm not going abroad at all and don't need to as it's been sunny most days.

What a lovely sight. Even Iceland's not too shabby. Even in the sunshine and mid August, it's feeling distinctly autumnal here. Poplars have started leaf fall — real dead yellow leaves. Not long now.

How did they know? CryoSat has only been measuring Arctic ice since 1978/9.

Id say that Autumn is quite advanced. Just noticing all the flowers and berries feels more like LATE August and early September.. The buddleas are completely over and we've got butterflies hibernating in the house which is definitely early.

We told our nephews to avoid the M11 and take the A1 down into London. Hope they followed our advice as they set off going the other way about the same time as you.

Do you think there's a connection? We had my husbands nephews (one lives in Australia) and the weather behaved perfectly all Wednesday and Thursday. We even went for a dip in the North Sea which was incredibly warm. And the farmers were frantically harvesting wheat. But Friday morning when they got packed up to leave was dull and it was damp all afternoon with a big rumble of thunder around 4 pm. Today's been lovely.

All clouded over after another glorious day. It's what I call perfect summer weather, hot sunshine with a decent breeze to take away any stickiness or humidity. I'm really nasty because it's probably going to rain most of the w/e, but I'm retired so can enjoy the sunshine all week. Ho ho. Just picked 3lbs of Czar plums which will be bottled to enjoy one dismal day in December.

Actually I'm a bit spooked. It's a long story but my sister gave us her dog Ludo when she had her second baby - she couldn't handle the walks and a new baby. Ludo settled down really well and everything was fine, but he would never ever go into a room with an open fire in it. No reason at all for his phobia. We just accepted it as part of his nature. But 6 years later my sister's house burned down when a lit log rolled onto the carpet. We all remembered Ludo's premonition. My dog hates lightning, it's the lightning not the thunder as he's ok when he hears it in the distance.... hope we don't have another dog prophet.

Sometimes they don't need to. Some are home made - just seen an almighty flash off Dunwich on the radar. Maybe we'll get some home cooking tonight.

Just seen two big cloud-cloud flashes to my SE but nothing registering on the strike map. Does lightning have to hit the ground to register?

And we have lift off. Whole south sky lit up just then and a nice long rumble. Great fun referring back to the radar after the few seconds delay and seeing it.