Frank Trough

reminds me of March 1995 following the wet winter then....pattern carried on relentlessly for the first part of march with no let up and produced this: which delieverd the best snow of "winter" midlands north. Not too disimilar to what we're seeing now, although uppers abit cooler then.

well, it would certainly need an enormous amount of investigation and would be subject to appropriate assessment (and quite rightly). It's all a balance - saline lagoons are extraordinarily valuable ecological resources in their own right so you could make a case along those lines aside from the human issues. Of course, some of the legal protection afforded to species also protects their habitats - which are the same laws that prevent places like the New Forest being concreted over or subjected to unacceptable levels of disturbance. The number of large scale, infrastructure development projects actually prevented by the presence of a protected species alone is miniscule. The dreaded words "mitigation" and "compensation" soon to be followed by "offsetting" are far more prominent.

interesting read, thanks for the link! From a selfish point of view, i'm hoping that if Europe ends up being wetter than average through spring that the rain falls mainly away from southern England!

I'm losing hope now....i'm just astonished at the longevity of this pattern. No end in sight this morning - any changes to anything significantly drier are being pushed back. If the CFS over recent days is to be believed then no real end either for March: tell me it's not going to be close? Surely as we progress through March the tendency would be for the Atlantic to wind down a bit? isn't February to May supposed to be our "dry season"?

Top ten wettest winters: 423.0 1914-15420.9 1989-90418.3 1876-77415.6 1994-95388.3 1993-94380.6 1868-69374.3 1959-60373.5 1915-16363.0 1965-66362.0 1936-37 of the more recent ones of those 89/90 produced a nice summer (mixed spring), 94/95 was also followed by a nice spring and summer while 93/94 had an indifferent (and still wet) spring but a decent June and July. I know it probably doesn't mean anything but it's fun anyway. There was a good post on here a while ago (and I forget which thread and poster so apologies) who showed how rarely (in recent times) a cold February has followed a mild and wet December and January. As I say, it's interesting......and let's face it, I am desperately searching for any tenuous hopes of something drier to look forward to!

i'd bank a repeat of spring/summer 1995 before you can say "pattern matching doesn't work"!

it's all a bit depressing tonight. The direction of travel over the last few days has gradually been away from any real end to the unsettled weather and back to something similar to what we've seen for weeks on end. the westerly theme just keeps on giving and it's odds on now that it will see out winter. With ground water levels so high even a slight moderation in rainfall amounts is going to make precious little difference. I have everything crossed that a change of season will bring a change of luck - be it cold or warm i couldn't care less. Let's just hope it's drier.

"Exceptionally colder" - James Madden, aged 11 and 3/4 it's going to be 7c! where is this forecast for? South Sudan?

I won't be holding my breath waiting for snow to fall in Bournemouth. Cue massive snow disruption for my wedding (in Bomo) next saturday.....

Can't we just have an average Spring? please not apocalyptically wet. I don't mind the odd bit of excitement with snow in March but last year was awful because of the longevity. Hoping for some snow in February then a normal spring that gets progressively warmer. And i won't be standing for a third rubbish May in a row either (i'll just stay in bed....)

it didn't deliver much snow on the Isle of wight. Perishingly cold it certainly was but the snow was restricted to a few showers until the end of the week when the advancing Atlantic gave a spell of snow which melted in the afternoon. I remember seeing the weather forecasts and getting up to do my paper round expecting to see snow.... Mind you, we're going back a bit - maybe my memory is wrong.

yes, and for what it's worth (probably not much but....) the CFS has been adamant for a while now that spring, especially March, is going to see plenty of blocking and undercutting - similar to the synoptics progged for next week actually. personally i find that a bit upsetting as i wasn't really a fan of last spring but there you go. I'm getting used to cold springs, now.

February 2012 had a couple of snow events and a spell of pretty cold weather.....although as a whole it wasn't a month to write home about.

Well, it will be january - it wouldn't be much of a surprise if it got a bit cooler. Mind you, weren't we supposed to be battling "cold zonality" now according to the GFS a while back? Dreadful December, absolutely dreadful. It can only get better can't it.....once we've got through the "back to work" storm of course... after a brief bit of hope, the ECM then flattens everything out again going forward. More wet westerly junk to come? i'm pinning my hopes on Shedhead's big February freeze.

Favourite bit = July worst bit = March/start of April other bits of note as already mentioned really. Enjoyed the January snow ("working at home" day). May was rubbish again - could do with another May 2008 repeat before too long. I was away in Sri Lanka at the start of June but it wasn't that bad down here at the end...i definitely got sunburned at the end of june. august was pretty good down on the south coast as well - fantastic bournemouth air festival weekend. abiding memory = no fishing opportunities between mid june and the end of august were turned down due to adverse weather! a first for a good few years.

likewise the same can be said about those only looking at cold in FI. The country has/is being battered by storms and yet there has been precious little discussion about anything inside the reliable timeframe of late. I'm not feeling very charitable this morning after last night and discovering the water that leaked down our chimney! So, in the reliable there is nothing but more wind and rain which are going to cause more problems. Fridays low looks a little less intense further south but still looking bad further north. There are some very serious issues to still to come with flooding and damage to trees/property at what is not the ideal time of the year. Let's not overlook that. In the meantime while we wait for it to snow in FI December and one third of winter has gone. Certain posters got lambasted for suggesting a trend to zonal was likely (although not necessarily showing in the output) in early December while constant cold searching is applauded. The only difference so far is that the zonal has verified.

the focus is still on cold prospects in FI (which is understandable) but before we get there the GFS is relentlessly stormy and very wet. Some really awful charts for the north of england/scotland on tuesday before we see another deep low hit us on friday. and the then on sunday the GFS picks up this nastly little fellow: We the see another little depression push up into the southeast on monday: some really nasty weather still to come before there's any chance of something quieter and hopefully more wintry....but at the moment my focus is very much on the possible wind and rain. It could be miserable for many before we see a snowflake.

I do prefer this to the benign bartlett-style stuff but that's not to say it doesn't also have plenty of negative impacts - on me personally and of course other people. For one, my commute is much, much worse in wet, winter weather. Plus flooding issues aren't nice. But, on the flipside, i went for a run on wednesday evening about 6pm along the seafront and it was exhilarating. My goodness, the strength of the wind, the crashing tide and horizontal rain were actually really quite exciting.

some people most definitely would! i can remember reading posts in the depths of summer 2012 which were thoroughly enjoying the rain and southerly tracking lows. i was not one of them..... The few times recently i've had a laugh at the CFS charts for spring it seems to be showing the usual potential for a waning of the low hights to the north and the possibility of another generally below average spring.

chasing cold from northerly blasts away from the north sounds a bit nerve shredding, to be honest. Shortwaves, shifts east, watering down...living in the south.... that sort of set up would be brilliant for the north though, so fair play to them were that pattern to develop.

is that the windiest GFS op ever?! (i know - it isn't really, but blimey...). surely that's the most startling thing from the GFS tonight? etc etc..... is anybody going to have a fence left by 2014?

It looks quite likely that this will be the third predominantly westerly December in a row. 2011 was very westerly, 2012 less so to start with but was very zonal in the second half. I think 2009 and *that* December made us forget about this sort of bilge that we're having to endure.

Then you're going to be surpised how mild this week turns out to be in places. At least it looks like this won't be the case for too long and we might actually experience some "weather".

well, you can start with today and go from there. it's currently 14c at Glasgow airport. That's VERY mild, regardless of what it's doing elsewhere.

I wonder if our "press" have been moved to new offices in Greenland? I think it would explain a lot. I've written my own article which i intend to send to the Express: Britain to suffer from "weather" by our meterological correspondent Colin Cr@pspray "I love snow it's great. My dad says its going snow and snow and snow and snow all winter and if it doesn't i'm going to cry and cry and cry. The other day i went to the beach and it was brilliant and it was windy and there were big waves and i saw a dog do a poo and it was brilliant and i love rain. My neighbour told me it might rain and rain and rain and rain all summer and i think that's great as i love puddles. At christmas it might snow and rain and maybe there might be some sun and maybe everybody might die because of all this weather, that's what my grandad said".