The Enforcer

Unlike yesterday the band of heavier precipitation is crossing this area. 3.4C. Rain. Crap again.

Overnight low of 1.3C. Now 3.4C. Rain. Crap again.

Finally a few very light flakes blowing in the wind.

A few light snow showers, but dusting melted so now no lying snow in Abingdon and not even a snow shower in Bramhall. Crap again.

I'm tracking the same shower. It's heading my way. Expecting it to falter just before it gets here. Otherwise minimum -1C giving rise to frost and ice. Would have expected colder, but crappy cloud must have kept temperature up.

I made a mistake. I meant the radar showed pink for snow. Still got rain.

N-W radar showed a small snow shower (blue) creeping through towards the Oxford area. I tracked it until 10pm it was positioned directly over here. Rain. Crap again.

1.8C and light rain. Absolute rubbish.

The disruption comes from someone saying "hey look i saw a snowflake in all that rain".

Those charts epitomise how scenarios that look great for snow on paper produce very little away from the usual favoured locations.

Where? Anywhere? Or in Edinburgh?

I think that's a given. In a marginal situation this area is the epitomy of marginality.

Abingdon will undoubtedly remain snow-free from this northerly. I would also add that the BBC Countryfile forecast showed a realistic depiction of where any snow showers would be likely to be, namely hogging the coastline and making little progress inland, save for the far north.

Something very strange going on with the weatheronline radar. According to it, it started raining here at 4-30pm, whereas in reality it has only just starting raining. Temperature a booming 13.4C

I agree. The ice levels would have to be above average all year round before a reversal could truly be said to be underway.

You're talking about cold air undercutting the warm sector as the front heads south? Possible, but I'd suggest in November that snowfall would be resticted to northern uplands. Not sure how a wave works. Surf the snow? Let's hope it won't be winter waving goodbye.

The minima is probably lowered to that level ostensibly by clear dry frosty nights. The period leading up to a toppler is always mild, not cold or even cool. The cold air has to force the mild air out of the way before really taking effect. If these topplers do emerge, then they will be up against some abnormally mild air, so by the time the really cold airflow has pushed far enough south it will be over the North Sea. Too early. The second problem is precipitation. Snow showers can travel 1000's of miles over the sea without a hitch, but as soon as they make landfall there's a problem. Getting all the way down from Scotland to Southern England is going to be extremely difficult, especially given the lack of sun strength and convection, which can assist. It takes something of thundersnow proportions to break the mould and I don't think those events could be described as common.

I hope you are the one who is closer to the actual outcome. Not much. What you have to remember is that whilst the SSTs are below average, they are below average for early November. In some previous years, the negative anomalies have disappeared, because the cooling has slowed down or stopped rather than actually warming up so the temperatures being experienced at this time of year persisted throughout most of the winters. Below average SSTs in December, January and February would be an entirely different matter. Sorry JC. It must be WIB.

I think that's rather OTT. If the SST anomalies remain as they are, then I think the UK would more likely to have mild periods disrupted by occasional northern blocking and that northerly incursions would carry a little more bite to them. The result of this is that favoured spots for snow would see more than in recent years, but that lowland southern England, especially sheltered areas would not see any change in snowfall accumulations.

Not topplers. They will simply allow the Bartlett to take hold. What we're really looking for is an SST-assisted pressure build strong enough to fend off the Icelandic Low.

It's a pleasure. Maybe the anticipation of the coming winter has caused JC to finally lose his marbles. Next he'll be saying that Mr Crazysnowfan is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for snow this winter.

If SP is a warm ramper then I wonder how on earth you would categorise Anvil.

Going off-topic, but my father's christian name is Ormand.

I can't explain the differences. I use the Unisys ones because I find them clearer and the boundaries between temperatures are more clearly defined and easier to analyse. The Fnmoc charts are curved at the edges (a bit like the initial version of the new BBC weather graphics) rather than the flat plan view, which tends to distort the size of areas in favour of those nearer the equator. Nevertheless, Fnmoc does have the advantage of showing more of the Artic Circle. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two. I agree with what you say about the SST interaction with airmasses, however, I'm led to believe by others (SF/SM/IB) that the influence of SST on air is greater than the other way round. The comparison of Decembers was to show that it is the SST position at that time that is more important than the current position, otherwise 1998/99 would have been colder than 2000/01, in my view. None of the Decembers featured show the extent of cold anomalies that are currently present. The only year where some cold anomalies were still in situ in the GIN corridor without any strongly positive areas alongside them in the first week of December was 2000. Is it a coincidence that winter 2000/01 recorded the lowest CET of all the winters from 98/99 to 04/05? As you say, it is probably the case that the colder than average SSTs are not a direct cause of a colder UK winter. I tend to regard them as one of the symptoms that emerges as a result of the other global factors that generate the conditions which enable a colder UK winter to occur. Good point. I don't think it's critical as long as you stick with one set of charts and don't try to compare Unisys charts with a Fnmoc charts from different years. That's quite an amazing turnaround. I assume that some areas are still massively below average though. When I looked at the data last week, I was surprised that the ice levels in the Barents Sea (N of Norway) was above average given that it must have been on the receiving end of all the very mild air that's been heading north in recent weeks/months. This tends to reinforce the view that the SSTs don't pay too much attention to the temperature of the air above. If the ice has managed to claw it's way back from the brink of oblivion, please let it not run out of steam (poor choice of words) and keep going so that by the end of the winter there will be a much larger ice pack than in recent years.

I was concentrating on the area around Greenland and Iceland ostensibly. I accept that globally, there are significant differences and given how winter 1998/99 turned out, that may not be a bad thing.