Penrith Snow

In reality this mornings ECM isn't that different to yesterday's the only difference is that around the UK the pattern has shifted eastwards 500 miles leaving the UK in less cold air, this could easily flip back. More worrying is the GFS and MetO which are just plane poor. I would be happy with the ECM solution but experience tells me the MetO model will have this right. Whatever happens we need to get the cold in well before Christmas as La Nina winters tend to be front loaded so don't pin your hopes on snow in February it's the next six weeks or never IMO. Andy

Fantastic ECM tonight but like others I remember ‘That ECM’ in December 2012 that evaporated overnight. I will be viewing the 00z ECM from under the bed sheets

Really? Birmingham had heavy snow around the 20th December with 15cms falling at Edgbaston, did you miss that? Andy

You know things are bad when members post charts from November 1978, 1981, 2009 etc The point however is a good one, mild charts in November are not an indication of a mild winter, I worry more when we get a mid November cold snap like 1988. Plenty of time for change and I stick by my forecast of weak La Nina induced cold December. Andy

Terrible and incredibly boring output this morning, ECM gives us the type of winter chart we all hate with a strong Euro slug while GFS is only marginally better. Glad I am writing this from my house in Southern Spain but I worry my return to the UK in late November will not be met by better model offerings. Andy

The first half of November 1978 was exceptionally mild, indeed, by mid November autumn 1978 was one of the warmest on record, then on 21st November a cold front swept south introducing much colder North west winds with frost and snow showers. The rest is history ❄. To write off winter due to a warm September is daft, many professionals and modelers got last winter wrong as many expect GW to make cold weather extinct and mild winters the default. Yes they are more likely now but a cold Winter of Discontent is coming which will do for Boris what winter 1978/79 did for Jim Callaghan. Let the show begin.......

September 1978 was very warm........just saying!

Headline in tonights Guardian Newspaper states "UK and US Meteorologist expecting colder than average winter in Northern Europe due to an anticipated weak polar vortex". Not sure where the reporter got his info from but TBH it reflects my own thoughts, the article highlights February 2022 as being of particular risk for severe weather. Interesting

Come on guys, summer is over so let's see some wild interesting weather in late September compared to the boring semi summer conditions of recent weeks. Its now autumn so let's have some proper autumn weather, come December let's have wintry weather, its simple really!

3 cms, I have gone entire winters without seeing that much snow. Nice to see a cold related record for a change all this GW doom mongering has even getting on my nerves Andy

I wouldn't like to be living on the East Coast this week at least here in Cumbria the sun comes out every now and then. Surely its unusual to have such cloudy conditions in a strong powerful summer anticyclone at least away from the east coast. I am racking my brain thinking of a similar set up in the past? Feel for those in SE England as this spell of winterlike anticyclonic gloom has finished off a dreadful summer, at least up north the summer was much better then average. Andy

I am expecting a cold UK winter in 21/22 as I think we are in a similar situation to 2009. In November 2009 after MetO predictions of a mild winter I went for a cold one as we were coming out of the solar cycle minimum and the previous winter was fairly cold (the first for many years). We are in a similar situation now, coming out of the solar cycle minimum with a previous winter which was by modern standards was fairly cold. Very cold winters are nearly always preceeded by one's that we're fairly cold, think 1978 and 1962. Cold winters in the UK tend to come in clusters and I think we are entering another cold winter cluster now. So that's my winter forecast for winter 21/22, cold or very cold by modern standards and certainly the coldest since 2010/11. Andy

A lot of people who staycationed on the south coast in expensive and grubby caravans must be wishing they had run the Covid gauntlet and gone to Spain instead. To spend thousands on a wet fortnight in Bournemouth must be a crapper when you could have gone to Malaga for a tenner!

This mornings ECM pushes any really good weather out to Day 10 which is a great chart, it does however, remind me of winter and the ECM freezing easterly that is always at Day 10. SE England might do OK from Day7 but for the rest of us summer is slipping away. Andy

Here in Cumbria one decent month makes a summer and June was excellent. Anyway, any summer that is book ended by a severe winter is a good year!

Manchester sunnier than London? Someone is having a laugh

Closest UK came to that kind of continental climate was 1947 with a severe winter and hot summer. More recently 2010 brought us a cold winter, decent summer, clear sunny autumn with the snow returning in November. I would settle for that every year!

Why am I not surprised, Cumbria just makes it into the worst category while the North East is sunnier. Thank God I brought a bolt hole in Southern Spain.

Good luck Matt, hope things improve for you and your dad soon.

Christ that's so bad it's laughable! As the man said in Jaws: We're going to need a bigger boat

In North West England we haven't had a good August since 2003 and looking at this mornings output that run of poor months is not going to end in 2021. Can't complain really as July was exceptionally good. Andy

Exactly, no where near the top and Manchester has been ground zero in this current spell. In the south east this heatwave has been a non event really.

These MetO heat warnings are a joke, it's not that hot! Current heatwave is nothing like 2018 or 2019 and positively cold compared to 2003 and 1976! It's pure boll*cks designed to get us all worried about Global Heating. I really do give up

What a lovely Cat, want to take him home.

I am in South East Spain for the next month, what the hell will conditions under that purple colour be like? 26c uppers must mean 35c + at the surface