trickydicky

I don’t agree with this at all. Not that it makes any difference. I don’t think we are in a position to dictate (not that we can of course) when northerly blocking would be most preferable. We are beggars here and not in a position to be choosers. We should all be thankful for any northerly blocking, or even just any mid level high pressure that brings a spell of dry frosty weather, at any point between now and the end of April. The alternative, as we have seen now too many times for it even to be noteworthy any more, is for ‘typical late autumn weather’ to be all we get. Basically if the choice is a blocked chilly pattern now or none at all then I’d happily take it now. As massively irrelevant to what happens as that is.

Can only be 2010. I’d pay a decent amount to have that November/December ‘back end’ this year.

It’s barely rained at all here over the last couple of days. What has come down has been fine drizzle blowing in the wind. Feels weird that so much rain has come from the ‘wrong’ direction.

So exactly like July then! The stuffy humidity is stopping it feel autumnal at all to me.

We’ve lost September as an Autumn month and judging by the forecast October is joining summer too. Autumn cool down really is a dragged out affair these days. Beyond it being dark by half 7 it could still be July.

I would say a notable feature of this winter has been the coldness of the frosty periods. Locally anyway. We’ve had 3 distinct spells really. The one at the start of December, one in early to mid January and this last week or so. We hit -11 here in December on a couple of nights but it was consistently around -8/9/10 for about a week. That week in January there was a night/morning at -10 and last Wednesday morning it was -9. Pretty reasonable. Certainly that spell in December was a bit of a what if. Ifwe’d had a bit of snow on the ground we could’ve had a run of very cold nights indeed. What I think is also noteworthy in recent years is the difficulty in getting cold air and moisture to coincide. Up until last Friday you could have fit all the snow that had fallen here locally since the Beast from the East mkII in mid March 2018 into a standard sized wheelie bin. That includes quite a lot of snow fall events, but never any that amounted to anything worth talking about. But in the same period a lot of frost.

A quite wintery day in Cumbrialand yesterday. I drove to work on the west coast and encountered heavy wet snow at around Cockermouth that wasn't quite sticking. It snowed more or less all morning at my office very near to the coast without really sticking before it picked up a bit around lunch time and started to stick. I made half hearted excuses about not wanting to drive if it got too bad, and left. I wasn't expecting much if anything but I only had to drive about half a mile in land and road conditions were pretty bad. Very big feathery flakes falling very heavily and sticking on all surfaces, including gritted roads. Road conditions were dicey but cleared around Bassenthwaite. By Keswick there was full snow cover again but falling snow had stopped. After Threlkeld it cleared up and there was no snow at Penrith. The sun was out in the Eden Valley and the temperature around 4c, so I didn't expect anything further here, though I noted the sky looking very black to the north. At about half 3 it darkened in here and started chucking it down with snow. It only snowed for about half an hour but it was enough to leave two inches of very wet snow on all surfaces. Once that passed through it cleared and the soggy snow froze into a crispy covering. Chilly overnight but fog here stopped it getting any lower than -4. Overall, with the snow from last Friday, a noteworthy wintery spell. Especially for the western fringe of the Lake District fells which seemed to be the sweetspot on both occasions. Some places that don't usually see very much settling snow at all have had 2 good falls in a week.

It was very cold for the first two weeks of December but there was no snow bar the thinest of sugar coatings on the high tops. There was snow south of Kendal. Then there was a week in January where there was snow. But thats one week and we’re well into February now. Even that makes it better than most recent winters. Today is a perfect example of recent years default. 8 degrees, overcast, cloud at about 2000ft, no wind. Just a mild drift around the top of a high pressure to the south. Another thing that used to be an absolute staple of winter here was a cold spell of frosty weather brought to an end by heavy snow that turned to rain. I couldn’t tell you the last time it happened. You used to get pretty substantial falls for a good few hours before it turned to rain.

I agree with this. When I think of winter as a kid up here in Cumbria I think mainly of a cold wind! And cold rain, often wet at lower levels but snow on the fells etc. Now it seems to be either a sort of mild nothingness- dull, overcast, 7/8 degrees by day, 4/5 degrees by night, little wind -, or frosty, or a southerly plume and about 14 degrees.

Well they make up everything else so why would they be any different with the weather?! I wouldn’t wipe my backside with either of them.

A couple of inches of snow here. It looks like it was a short sharp heavy burst of big wet flakes that have now frozen.

Was it perhaps a fohn type situation? Still extreme though.

Is Atmospheric River not just another name for trailing fronts or pineapple express or whatever else? And is it not just what happened in November 2009 and December 2015? And rather than burying us in snow do they not tend to just drown the west of the UK?

Another very cold morning. Got down to -10, now -9. It feels strange that’ll just get pushed away and it’ll be 11 degrees on Monday, but that seems to be the way of things now. Drizzly misty breakdowns as opposed to snowy ones. I agree that it has been an excellent spell of weather. No snow apart from a couple of tiny dustings but its been pretty much solidly subzero for 10 days or so with such a thick build up of frost, to an extent I’ve never seen before, that it looks like it has snowed. We’ve also answered the question ‘how cold can it get without snow?’ which seems to be about -12!

Stunning morning. Drove across Cumbria this morning after being at a do in west Cumbria yesterday. Bassenthwaite Lakes is largely frozen and even the River Eden is started to freeze up at the margins. Currently -11 here. Higher areas were generally about -5 with a little bit of a breeze keeping the temperatures up. Presumably the first sign of the weather being about to change.

Still can’t grumble too much. The frost is very pretty. I would say over the course of the last week the temperature has been above freezing for no more than an hour.

We dropped down quite quickly to -7 and then a bit of high cloud rolled in at about 10pm. The temp rose to -5 and prevented us getting as low as some places not too far away in Northumberland and southern Scotland that got down below -10. Like with you the cloud trundled off at sunrise and the temperature dropped back to -7. We never seem to be able to go through an entire night cloud, mist or fog free here which is a little frustrating!

Very cold today, maxed out at -2. Had a couple of days of freezing fog so everything is covered in thick frost. When the fog cleared and the sun came out it looked pretty spectacular. Already -7 here. Will be interesting to see how low it can go tonight.

We’ve had one of them tiny coverings of snow that are so slight you can see the individual flakes on the floor. The main result of it is the cloud has raised the temperature considerably. It was -7 by about 9pm but then it started to cloud up which is a bit of a shame. It’s a relatively tropical -1 now. Everything looks very white, as if we had actually had a decent little covering of snow, but it’s 99% frost.

Picture postcard winters day here today. Came out wall to wall sunshine this afternoon and maxed out at -1. Dropped to -4 now. The ground is frozen solid and white with a fair build up of frost. It could be a good test of how cold you can get without snow if it stays this clear and calm all night.

-7 again this morning but the temperature dropped much later on as there was a bit of cloud and a breeze at first last night. Had a tiny smattering of snow yesterday lunch time which has mixed with 3 days frost accumulation to make everything look very white!

What were the maximums this summer in the usual winter cold spots such as Altnaharra and Braemar? Both of those could be on for minus teens if they get/have got snow cover.

-7 here in thick freezing fog. If that hangs around the temperature won’t rise much at all. Bit disappointed with the fog. It feels like it’s been foggy and murky here for weeks, I was looking forward to crisp sunshine. At least I won’t have to go far uphill for it.

I’d be surprised without snow cover. But you never know I suppose.

Northern Scotland seems to be under a slack flow for ages. Could be a run of very low temperatures in any snow covered glens up there.