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Posted
  • Location: Maidstone, Kent
  • Weather Preferences: Anything below 0c or above 20c. Also love a good thunderstorm!
  • Location: Maidstone, Kent
Posted

Given the drabness of our weather lots have taken interest in North America. 

I've studied a few years back with two people from the US (Atlanta and Chicago) who said how a large number of people at home simply didn't believe in Climate Change. We might look at some of the rhetoric from Trump for example in puzzlement, but I can see why someone in the US might feel that their climate isn't warming. Record snow in Southern States, record cold spell in February 2021 and 2018 at the time and slightly further back some very cold winters in 2014 and 2015. On top of this it looks like the worst heatwaves go back decades as apposed to Europe which seems to be getting worse every year.

Unlike Europe where cold is fading fast, North America is still pulling off the cold and perhaps more impressively than past decades which is the opposite this side of the Atlantic. 

At a very quick glance when you look at temperature extremes in the US you're getting a lot more old heat records and recent cold records whilst in Europe I think all the heat records are post 2010 and cold records pre 1990s. This is not fully quantified but I can say that North America is not warming anywhere near as fast as Europe. 

The two are probably linked, since cold weather in North America fires up the jetstresm which obliterates and blocking and hence any cold weather for Europe. As winters cool in the US, ours will warm with a stronger Atlantic. 

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Posted
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow Nov - Feb. Thunderstorms, 20-29°C and sun any time!
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Brad in Kent said:

whilst in Europe I think all the heat records are post 2010 and cold records pre 1990s.

There's still been a few cold records this century in Europe, though few and far in between compared to heat of course. Off the top of my head:

December 2010 - Coldest December on record for northern Ireland mean and absolute temperature, also other parts of UK.

January 2021 - Unofficially a new record low in Spain of -35.6C but in an mountainous valley, following storm Filomena bringing a lot of snow for the northern half of the country.

March 2018 - Beast from the east set record low daily maximum records for March / spring many parts of the UK.

January 2017 - Exceptional cold wave across Europe, I think set some local county records in Hungary and Russia, and a new record for Albania.

 

Then looking on Wikipedia, a few countries set some records this century but not sure on the reliability. E.g Croatia in January 2003, and Germany in December 2001. FInland recorded -51.5C in January 1999. Serbia in January 2006 with -39.8C.

 

Edited by Metwatch
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Posted
  • Location: South Derbyshire
  • Location: South Derbyshire
Posted

  raz.org.rain The Rockies must protect areas to the west and the Pacific probably as well because you’d never see anything like that in Phoenix, Los Angeles or San Francisco and they are further north especially San Francisco.

Posted
  • Location: Fairlight,nr H,East Sussex,Hither Green,SE London.
  • Location: Fairlight,nr H,East Sussex,Hither Green,SE London.
Posted

A protracted cold spell finally drawing to a close.

Might not have been the snowfest some were looking for,but between Christmas and yesterday snow fell and stuck in areas as wide apart as thr Sussex coast and the Scottish borders.

The temperatures very often maxing out at 3 or 4c averagely in that time here in Sussex with some notable overnight frosts.

So in terms of length of cold,certainly notable in these recent years.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Close to Loch Lomond, 20 miles NW of Glasgow
  • Location: Close to Loch Lomond, 20 miles NW of Glasgow
Posted

Other than a couple of hours of heavy sleet that left a short lived inch of slush in December, there's been nothing resembling snow here at all this winter. Similarly last winter I had a single morning of lying snow that barely covered the ground for the few hours it hung around.

Now, tomorrow, I have the strongest storm arriving for more than a decade, wind gusts are forecast between 80mph and 90mph for most of the day and yet I also have yellow snow warning.  The irony that it takes a mid Atlantic wind storm to (possibly) give me a proper snowfall has not been lost on me.

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Posted
  • Location: London
  • Weather Preferences: Seasonal Disparity: Cold and Snowy Winters, Sunny and Warm Summers.
  • Location: London
Posted (edited)

 Brad in Kent Yeah. Tbh, I think North America is always going to be much more prone to 'extremes' of weather seasonality-wise than the vast majority of Europe, by virtue of their landmass and location. They also aren't affected by the Gulf Stream and Jet Stream in the way way as Europe is. 

A lot of the places in the USA that regularly get prolonged periods of snow in the winter, alongside subzero temps, also get prolonged periods of weather in summer that in the UK we'd call "extreme heat". But to them, that is simply just Winter and Summer. 

Getting snow like that in Florida and Louisiana is pretty wild though, but again, it just reaffirms the reality that our climate in N-West Europe is predominantly mild - nothing more, nothing less. Mildness dominates all, which of course ensures we avoid most extreme conditions, but it also makes things incredibly boring, and makes seasons blur together somewhat with less distinct features. 

For the record, by ideal climate would be somewhere like Oregon, or North California. Lot's of sunny, dry weather year-round, with clearly demarked and distinct seasons, plenty of snow and frosty conditions from Nov-March, and plenty of warm-hot and sunny weather from April-Sept. 

Edited by In Absence of True Seasons
  • Like 3
Posted
  • Location: Essex Riviera aka Burnham
  • Weather Preferences: 30 Degrees of pure British Celsius
  • Location: Essex Riviera aka Burnham
Posted

The pattern change is underway...from Chilly, Dull and calm featureless days to slight wind and rain. Whopppeeeeee!!!!!!

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Posted
  • Location: Stratford-upon-Avon
  • Weather Preferences: Sun, snow, storms
  • Location: Stratford-upon-Avon
Posted (edited)

Looks to be a bit breezy here tomorrow, nothing exceptional. Then again, windstorms very rarely deliver anything noteworthy in my area, even a single 50mph gust seems to be hard to achieve.

Edited by Snowshine
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

Extremely wet at the moment here, and the "proper" unsettled spell isn't supposed to even start until tomorrow!

Will this end up a month with a reputation like that of July 2017, Dec 2022, and Sep 2024, with a dry spell completely swept away and forgotten about due to an extremely bad 9 days to finish the month?

Will the lasting memories of Jan 2025 be of a cold, dry and benign month, or an extremely wet and not especially cold one? I do find the end part of the month often colours my perception of the month as a whole. In the opposite sense, I always rate Jan 1996 highly as it started poorly and finished good.

Certainly in those areas which got the rainfall on Jan 1st and 5th, I wouldn't be surprised to see this month come out as 200% of the average. Despite a dry December and fairly average November, the deluge continues...

Edited by Summer8906
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 BlueHedgehog074 Some surprisingly low maxima for Winchester there given the synoptics. Only tomorrow mild, other days around or even slightly below average 7-8C. The synoptics would to me suggest 10-12.

A lot of forecasts seem to be (to my mind) under-doing the forecast maxima for the next week. This kind of extremely wet, Atlantic-driven weather normally means double figures by default in southern England, even in the SE. So why are the forecasts not going for solid 10-12 down here? I'm using Feb 2020, very synoptically similar to my mind, as my base point: that had a mean max of over 11C at Heathrow. So why are the forecasts going for non-mild maxima when the charts suggest something thoroughly and unambiguously mild?

Mind you I also remember Feb 2020 featuring "average" temps forecast at times, when in fact it was around 3C above. So perhaps there is something in forecasts not factoring in global warming properly. You also see it in summer sometimes, when the London area reaches mid-twenties temps when only around 20 or 21 is forecast.

The 30th looks to me like the only day that could deliver average temps, never mind below, as a weak NW-ly takes over for one day.

Meanwhile, one unforecast minor storm (today) and three major storms. I suspect flooding will be the big story down here. Thank heaven December was dry.

Edited by Summer8906
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Posted
  • Location: Guildford, Surrey
  • Weather Preferences: Hot, dry & sunny
  • Location: Guildford, Surrey
Posted

Today's rain has just passed with a few lame gusts of wind but now some much needed sunshine

We've only had 2 hrs of sun in the past 8 days, which is a whopping 2.7% of possibly sunshine! The last year has been so persistently cloudy , what the hell is going on!?

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Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 Stabilo19 I suppose the first half of this month was noticeably sunny. I haven't minded the recent dull spell though... at least it felt wintry and seasonal. Feels like we've jumped back to autumn today, with rain, wind and damp/humid air. Briefly dry around 1-2pm, now back to cloudy and wet.

Hoping that March and April produce above-average sunshine this year.

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: London
  • Weather Preferences: Seasonal Disparity: Cold and Snowy Winters, Sunny and Warm Summers.
  • Location: London
Posted

First sighting of clear sky here for a long time (9 or 10 days I think).

PXL_20250123_150722306.jpg

  • Like 3
Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

Rain that came through was very heavy and quickly lead to deep pooling everywhere. Was the first heavy rain in a while (17 days may not be long in some places but after the past 2 years 17 days without heavy rain feels like 17 years!). 

Noticed that the park behind me is starting to have its grass grow back after being just mud for the past few weeks. A response to milder temperatures perhaps. 

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Posted
  • Location: Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: BWh
  • Location: Cheshire
Posted (edited)

 TheOgre the west coast itself is a weird one. Around Northern California you've got climates that resemble Scotland, but if you go a little further north to Oregon it's closer to what you'd expect from central France. Even further north, Vancouver Island at 49°N has a Mediterranean-type climate. A good example of the influence the Rockies has is the Okanagan desert in BC at a similar latitude to London 

Edited by raz.org.rain
  • Insightful 1
Posted
  • Location: Leeds
  • Weather Preferences: snow, heat, thunderstorms
  • Location: Leeds
Posted (edited)

 raz.org.rain the entire coast from San Diego to Seattle has a Mediterranean climate. Seattle has warm summer Mediterranean climate while San Diego has a hot summer Mediterranean climate.

Mediterranean climates are primarily defined by rainfall. In terms of temperature Seattle is virtually identical to London and would otherwise be an oceanic climate, but since Seattle’s summers are so much drier than its winters it falls under the warm summer Mediterranean category.

Some places in Northern California do have really cold summers though. For example, the warmest month in Eureka has an average maximum temperature of 17.8C - that’s colder than Aberdeen!

Edited by cheese
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Posted
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow Nov - Feb. Thunderstorms, 20-29°C and sun any time!
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
Posted

First rain in over 2 weeks here earlier this afternoon. Did feel kind of weird as not used to not seeing rain for that long recently. A bit annoying but at least it was short lived!

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Posted
  • Location: SE Wales.
  • Weather Preferences: Cold snowy winters, mild/warm summers and varied shoulder seasons
  • Location: SE Wales.
Posted

 Brad in Kent North America has had some very mild winters lately too. Feb 2024 was also record breaking mild for large parts of eastern North America and my friend from Maine has reported many recent winters where snow has been lacking and there's been spells of 10C+ temps in winter. They also had extreme mild in Dec 2015 NYC didnt record a single freezing night that month. 

I do think though that west coasts of this world are warming faster than east coasts (Europe and Western North America both seem to be warming faster than Eastern North America and East Asia). as west coasts have subtropical ridges and a warmer world means the jet gets shoved north and therefore the subtropical ridge gets shoved north which means hot air is shoved north. Where as with the eastern coasts they can still get cold northerlies from Canada/Siberia as they don't have a semi permanent high blocking the cold air. 

Posted
  • Location: Solihull, Midlands. (Formerly DRL)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, thunder, hail & heavy snow
  • Location: Solihull, Midlands. (Formerly DRL)
Posted

 Summer8906 Can certainly imagine for you guys further down South and South-East the Atlantic dominated outlook bringing a fair amount of mild weather, but I wonder if it may also do with the fact there looks to be quite a lot of Polar air mixing behind the systems to keep things fairly cool, even for some of you guys.

But then again, with the possibly that forecasts could be under-estimating the maximum temperatures for you (especially with your accounts of Summer, and then February 2020), it could be the case of them not taking factors, such as a warming planet, fully into account, thus leading to some under-playing of milder temperatures. I suspect as well, maybe, that for days of more Polar-filled Westerly air for South-Eastern areas that, if accompanied by sunshine most of time, then that could help raise temperatures a bit higher than what some of these forecasts predict - as I think I’ve seen that happen here before. In fact, it seems the case that temperatures can get under-done sometimes on sunnier days in general, depending on the setup and how well forecasted these sunny days have been.

Is going to be quite a rollercoaster of a ride with the weather for the upcoming period (including the heavy rain here earlier), that’s for sure. I’m thankful, also, that December (fair portions of it here) and generally just these last 2 weeks have been dry, because any issues of flooding for the next few days could be worse. Still, a chance floods could be hugely impactful for us. And some of the winds from the Atlantic Lows, especially tomorrow’s, could have a sting to it. Though most of us in the South look like avoiding the worst. I just hope for those in the risk zones in the North and West don’t suffer with too much grief with it as it does look concerning. The mess that would have to be dealt with afterwards wouldn’t be fun.

In spite of all this, I really just personally wish February becomes increasingly drier the further into the month things head in. Like a few other posters, then some mild or warm sunny weather for the Spring period after. Plus a proper chance to dry out the ground! Don’t mind one or two wintry episodes in Spring if they’re not too long lasting and pack a punch. Interesting as some of the weather can be during this season (well, with the right setup), Winter can drag after a while. 

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Posted
  • Location: London
  • Weather Preferences: Seasonal Disparity: Cold and Snowy Winters, Sunny and Warm Summers.
  • Location: London
Posted

Cold, wet, and windy. The beautiful trifecta of the British winter 

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Posted
  • Location: NR Worthing SE Coast
  • Location: NR Worthing SE Coast
Posted (edited)

British winters just suck big time, never cold enough for decent long-lasting snow, even  in the highlands now, ski season still hasn't really got going, not enough snow by a mile to start properly  and it's nearly February.! 

 

Just horrid wind and rain  with occasional mild dry spells, as for long-fetched frigid Easterlies in the winter months? 

Forget- it's a dream of decades ago. 

 

 

 

Edited by SLEETY
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm or cold, just clear skies please.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted

 Stabilo19 is the amount of cloud we’ve had over the past year normal? or am I just much more aware of it? It’s felt relentless—like we’re living in Silent Hill (if anyone’s ever played that game).

I’m personally looking forward to some mild weather, wind and rain! It makes going out for a walk more interesting than the dull, cold, greyness we’ve had 😩

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Posted
  • Location: Southend
  • Weather Preferences: Clear blue skies!
  • Location: Southend
Posted

 Rbn With the exception of 2022, it has definitely been infinitely duller from 2021 onwards or even October 2020 onwards. If we don't get any sunnier years in the next 2 years then I'm gonna be resigned to the fact that the UK (or at least South East UK where I am) is now much duller than it once was (and it was already a very dull place) and the dullness is here to stay. 2025 needs to step up in terms of sunshine levels, BIG TIME.

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