trickydicky

I wish my other half lived in Slovakia

Yeah, this time last year was great. Got plenty of nice walks in, lovely clear skies and a decent amount of snow on the tops. This year is the exact opposite. The BBC app has 15c for my location on Saturday, presumably as a result of being in the lee of the Lake District fells. Pretty dismal really. As you say, it just has to be got through.

Interesting how many are in the early to mid 19th century, which I always presume to be cold, snowy and generally Dickensian.

I know the bbc weather app isn’t the be all and end all in accuracy but I usually rely on it just for a quick idea of what the weather is doing. All day yesterday it said it was cloudy and 8c here yesterday, and gave a min of 4c overnight. This despite there not having been a cloud in the sky here since yesterday lunchtime. It’s currently insisting it’s 3c and cloudy here, when in fact it’s -3 and as clear as a whistle. More interesting than that is that while it’s -3 down here it’s 8c atop Great Dun Fell, a couple of miles away and 850 metres up. Quite the inversion.

Heavy sleety miserableness here. Tomorrow looking like a few hours of sleet blizzard, which must be the worst type of weather to be outside in.

I’m not sure he has any actual say on what the weather will do.

In my lifetime November/December 2010. From history I’d probably go back to that week in February 1895 when Braemar had a run of nights around -25.

Not just standing up. Standing up wearing shorts as the lad on the right of the two in front is. He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it either.

Yeah that’ll probably be it, I can remember going sledging on New Years Day on an absolute bare minimum of snow and mainly frozen grass! Prior to that I can remember snow but not when it was, I was too young to be paying attention!

I worked in Blackpool between 2009 and 2013 when we had our brief run of cold winters. As such I remember the Fylde Coast as being generally pretty cold and snowy, though I know it isn’t! I can remember one night in December 2010 the motorway was shut for some reason or another so I took a back road route home to where I lived on the other side of Preston. It was dark, everything was covered in a few inches of sparkling snow and there were Christmas lights on everywhere. It’s one of my favourite winter memories. Anyway, my favourites: 2010 - was perfect really. 2009 - there was probably a bit more snow than 2010 but not for as long. 1995 - for the memorably cold last week. 1994 - the little cold spell between Christmas and New Year is just about the first one I can remember with any clarity. Pretty much every other December merges into one generally dark and damp lump of nothingness.

I’ve been to Harper Adams and as I recall it’s in quite a shallow, wide valley that you don’t even notice you’re in. I suppose it’s possible that within that there are little localised features that could create frost hollows within the frost hollow! Probably more likely that the farmers thermometers weren’t set up at standard requirements. When I was younger I had a Guinness Book of Records that quoted the British record minimum as being -30.6 at Blackadder in the Scottish Borders in December 1879.

From what I remember of snooker halls back in the day that’s pretty much standard

-24, Warcop, Christmas morning..

Holmrook… the village by the River Irt.

Not much of Workington can flood though. Most of the town is up away from the river. Pretty much the only things down by the river are parks and sports fields. Cockermouth on the other hand… I lived there until December 2015!

I grew up in a village on top of a bit of a hill in Cumbria served by minor roads that the council largely ignored. The worst drifting I can remember was early February 1996. The roads were completely blocked to the tops of the walls and hedges with some cars stuck under it too. But I think we were only genuinely stuck in for a couple of days before farmers had dug a narrow one car wide track through it. It wasn’t gritted or anything though and I don’t think many folk ventured out for the whole week. A blizzard in late February/early March 2001 created similar circumstances but less long lasting. I went to uni in Lancashire a year later and barely saw snow again! Now I live close to an A road that is kept open no matter what, even in 2018.

Starting to feel like we just can’t shake this humid, extremely mild waft we’re stuck under. People in the south east are celebrating that it could be 20+C in their neck of the woods next week. I’m not sure that’s anything to celebrate at this juncture. Meanwhile we’ll be stuck under some 15C by day and night, heavy rain, cloud at ground level horror show. Does polar maritime air still exist?

Nothing will ever be worse than that November-December 2015. I still haven’t fully got over it. Mind bendingly mild, incredibly wet and not even a glimmer of sunshine. The worst weather I’ve ever lived through.

To be honest I’d take that. Look at the winters that followed them.

One thing I always enjoy, whether it’s during a summer dry spell like we’ve had a few of recently or during a cold frosty period like last week, is the novelty of dryness. I can’t speak for everywhere in the North West but probably 80% of the time everywhere in Cumbria is at best damp, if not soggy, and venturing off a made surface involves mud. I enjoyed the ground being rock hard last week and not needing wellies or walking boots to step off the concrete. If you add in the snowy hills and the blue skies then you can see why I prefer last weeks weather, regardless of the cutting easterly wind, to this claustrophobic, stuffy, soggy dankness that we are back in now. I’ll never understand people who say they prefer it when it’s like this. If it was 10c and sunny then fair enough but mild in this country generally means grey and wet. Plus even though it was cold last week it was England cold, so not really that cold. You’re quite a delicate being if you can’t cope with it.

Your post could be reduced to ‘if you want some proper snow go somewhere that isn’t England during winter’

So in an easterly the air is dryer to the west of the Pennines, and this prevents snowfall? It seems as well though that if we have cold over us and a front comes in from the west the snow is heavier in the east as well. Maybe it isn’t and I’m just imagining it. Its noticeable in this easterly that the snow pretty much stops at the end of the western downslope of the Pennines. Where I am has just about managed a slight covering. Places a mile or two east have had a decent covering. Places further west nothing but a few flurries.

It’s an annoying yet interesting point. Why do the hills here cause rain to intensify, yet seem to cause snow to dissipate? Why is rain always heavier on this side of the Pennines, and snow heavier on the other (not just in easterlies)? There must be a reason.

Interestingly they did a little photo feature after the weather on BBC news and there isn’t that much snow in Altnaharra. It’s usually said that for the coldest night time minima you need fresh deep snow but it would appear that a covering is enough. Nudged gradually down to -8 here with barely any snow. Snow definitely helps getting it down below -10 quickly when the sun drops.

It’s the same here, lots of days of falling snow but not much lying. It’s snowed here every day since Sunday and we got a full cover on Monday but it’s dwindled away to just shade areas. It’s frustrating how close we’ve been to a 78/79 type winter. I believe Aviemore has had lying snow since Christmas Eve, Braemar is practically buried and even the Alston/Nenthead area has had probably more days with snow cover than not this year. Shouldn’t complain though, the last couple of years show how bad it can be. I was surprised on my travels (work) today how much of Bassenthwaite was frozen.