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Posted

Something I think about a lot after witnessing bad December after bad December is when was the best time for Decembers and when they were consistent and I’ve come to the conclusion that period was the 2000s.

December 2000: best snowfall in years for the UK -15 recorded.

December 2001: the coldest since 1996.

December 2002: bit of an outlier but a cold spell mid month maximum of just -3 in places on the 19th 

December 2003: a rollercoaster of a month but had decent cold spells New Year’s Eve was a very eventful day with blizzards and very cold minimums and maximums coldest December temperature since 1995 recorded.

December 2004: another outliner in some senses but a cold run up to Christmas and a white Christmas.

December: a lot of average weather but a cold post Christmas period -12.8 recorded on the night of the 28th/29th another lesser cold spell between 15-20th.

2006: the one bad December of the 2000s imo extremely mild.

2007: an average month but a cold middle 2 weeks a relief after the awful winter of 2006/2007 maximum of just -4.2! In places on the 21st. 

2008: the beginning of an amazing run of Decembers that would last 3 years the coldest December since 2001 overall with a very cold final week (side note I think this month is very underrated).

2009: speaks for itself perhaps the best December since 1981 that’s up for debate but still incredibly cold and snowy.

 

so what does everyone think are the 2000s overall the best and most consistent decade for Decembers?

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

December 2006 strikes me for its spell of extreme anticyclonic gloom over the festive period. IIRC this period had incredibly dense fog widespread, quite a rarity in the 21st century compared to times gone by. It also had that tornado in west London on the 7th. A poor month, but still an interesting one. In fact, the winter of 2006/2007, while exceptionally mild, was consistently "interesting". It had tornadoes, a severe freeze up, severe gales, incredibly foggy spells. One of the better super mild winters.

Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam
Posted (edited)

 LetItSnow

I take the opposite view, December 2006 was the December I chose for my year of hell thread.

Virtually no frost here during December 2006. That cold spell was basically, chilly and cloudy for my location, no fog at all. Anticyclonic gloom and little variation in temperatures. It was tedious, the only good thing about it was at least dry, a break from the washout of the rest of the month. 

Edited by Weather-history
Posted
  • Location: Wildwood, Stafford 104m asl
  • Weather Preferences: obviously snow!
  • Location: Wildwood, Stafford 104m asl
Posted

90's definitely better, 80's likely miles better than 90s

Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted
9 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Virtually no frost here during December 2006. That cold spell was basically, chilly and cloudy for my location, no fog at all. Anticyclonic gloom and little variation in temperatures. It was tedious, the only good thing about it was at least dry

Basically December 2024.

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

 I remember Atlantic 252 Expanding on WH's comment, yeah - only one cold December in the 1980s and that was 1981. Every other one was mild or average at best. A decade of cold winters but always focused between January and March. Funny really.

  • Like 1
Posted

 I remember Atlantic 252 hard disagree there apart from 1981 I would call Decembers in the 80s terrible particularly 85,86,87,88 which were all very mild 83 was also mild 82 was wet and and 80 82 and 89 were also meh at best arguably beating the 2010s as the worst decade for December.

 Weather-history I’m surprised December 2006 doesn’t have its own thread it’s was historical for all the wrong reasons. 

Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam
Posted

 Jackmonday06

I was a school kid in the mid-late 1980s, I remember winter 1987-88 and not being fussed that it was a mild Christmas as I was that use to seeing any really cold wintry weather coming after the New Year. Although I was interested in the weather at the time  being  young, I was naive meteorologically, so I just assume January 1988  it would turn cold and wintry as it did in the previous winters. 

 

 

 

  • Like 3
Posted
  • Location: Scunthorpe
  • Location: Scunthorpe
Posted

My personal ratings of 2000s Decembers

For Decembers I remember the 2000s ones were the best for cold and or snow. I'd rate them in this order from best to worst

1st     2009 - Easily the best December of the decade for both cold and snow. Best period was the 17th to the 24th

2nd    2001 - Generally a cold and sunny month with the main snow interest from just before Christmas right out to the end of the month

3rd     2000 - Milder month than 2001 but luckily a well timed cold week coinciding with Christmas to New Year with some snow, especially on the 28th

4th     2005 - A tamer version cold snap wise compared with 2000 and at really the same point in the month. A little less snow however than in 2000

5th     2008 - Snow early in the month then a colder spell later in the month

6th     2003 - Short cold snaps with a little snow in an otherwise milder month

7th     2002 - The easterly was so tame it may as well not have happened but did drag this month up from bottom spot

8th     2007 - Don't remember anything particularly wintry about this month

9th     2004 - Mild overall but a couple of tame cold snaps, missed out on the Christmas snow which dragged this month below 2007

10th   2006 - Easily the worst of the 2000s Decembers. Either mild and wet, mild and dry and the only colder spell was because of persistent fog for several days.

 

Weather stats ratings of 2000s Decembers and how these compare to my own ratings

Now I'll use official historical data to see how these compare with my ratings and order of the Decembers from the 2000s

Position     Year      Max     Min      Precip     Sun             TOTAL/60          My Position

1st              2001     7/10     7/10     18/20     19/20          51/60                  2nd

2nd            2008     7/10     6/10     14/20     19/20          46/60                  5th

3rd             2009     7/10     7/10     11/20     20/20          45/60                  1st

4th             2005     5/10     5/10     15/20     14/20          40/60                  4th

5th             2004     3/10     4/10     19/20     13/20          39/60                  9th

6th             2003     5/10     5/10     8/20       13/20          31/60                  6th

7th             2007     5/10     5/10     10/20     5/20            25/60                  8th

8th             2000     5/10     3/10     6/20       10/20          24/60                  3rd

9th             2006     3/10     2/10     11/20     5/20            21/60                  10th

10th           2002     6/10     2/10     1/20       3/20            12/60                  7th

 

It seems that official data backs me up with 2001, 2009, 2005, 2003, 2007, 2006 and 2002 in general as my ratings weren't that far out from what the official data shows but there is a bit of a dispute with 2008, 2004 and 2000 as the official data seems to show 2008  and 2004 as better than I thought they were whilst 2000 is shown to be a worse month than I perceived it to be.

Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted
13 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

2000 is shown to be a worse month than I perceived it to be.

To be fair, while the Xmas period was good the first half of the month was extremely mild and extremely wet, just a continuation of that incredibly wet autumn.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
Posted

2006 and 2007 easily the worst Decembers of the 00s for snow, but they produced cold frosty foggy spells in Tyne and Wear where I was at the time. I had a habit of being in the right place at the right time for cold and snow in the Dec 00s. In Windermere 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 all brought cold weather at christmas to new year, snow in all years as well. 2002 brought a bit of cold mid month.

 

Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Posted (edited)

December 2006's anticyclonic spell had a SW-NE split for several days - very sunny in the north-east, Aberdeen had its sunniest December on record at the time and had more sunshine than in June 2007, and in Cleadon in Tyne & Wear I had four or five consecutive sunny days with overnight frosts. I remember anticyclonic gloom being dominant in the south and west for most of the spell though, and on Christmas Eve this spread into Tyneside and gave a very grey Christmas Day when it felt like it never really got light.

My memories of December 2000 are heavily skewed by what happened in the last week. I didn't enjoy the mild and wet first half or the gloomy spell just before Christmas, but the post-Christmas cold snowy spell was so memorable that I tend to psychologically write off what went before and think "all is forgiven". That month produced my first experience of thundersnow. Cleadon missed out on the frontal snow from the polar low but made up for it with heavy east coast snow showers the following night as the low moved into the North Sea and northerlies set in, and I was woken up by a loud clap of thunder at 4:50am.

My least favourite of those 2000s Decembers was indeed 2002, in the north-east it was a very grey south-easterly month and largely snowless, and mild almost entirely due to high minima, although there was a bright and frosty spell on the 17th-20th which prevented it from being on a par with January/March 1996 for lack of sunshine.

Edited by Thundery wintry showers
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted
13 hours ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

My memories of December 2000 are heavily skewed by what happened in the last week. I didn't enjoy the mild and wet first half or the gloomy spell just before Christmas, but the post-Christmas cold snowy spell was so memorable that I tend to psychologically write off what went before and think "all is forgiven".

Interesting, I tend to do that too. You could say Dec 2000 was an inverse Dec 2022 and in fact, looking back, I tend to prefer the former over the latter even though it probably came out milder.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

More generally I'd say the period 1990-2010 was a notably good one for Decembers, with the 80s being surprisingly poor and 2011 to the present being really notably poor.

Perceptions of the 00s Decembers personally:

2000 - first half was very mild and wet, continuing the ridiculous autumn. However I do remember a change by the 16th with a coldish and bright day, and a more definitive change by around the 23rd which was cold and dull. The final week was continuously sunny and cold with a breakdown only occurring on the 31st. I even experienced lying snow but was away from home in NW England so I tend not to count it. 5.5/10 overall but 8/10 for the second half.

2001 - a very sunny and frosty month.  Like 2000 also featured lying snow at my location but again was away from home. Other than that it seemed near-continuously frosty and sunny with only short cloudier and milder interludes from time to time, I think Boxing Day and the days following was one such cloudy and mild spell. New Year's Eve very sunny, the last time we enjoyed a sunny New Year's Eve, remarkably (before that it was 1984 and 1979, sunny NYEs are very rare). 8/10 but 9/10 for areas which got snow.

2002 - the final week was terribly wet but despite that, there was quite a long moderately cold spell from around a week in, lasting two weeks. Consequently I don't rate this December quite as badly as some. This was quite a feature of Decembers of this era, initially mild, then long coldish spell until close to Christmas, then mild again. 5.5/10 (slightly above average might seem odd but this is comparing against all the Decembers that I can remember - and many didn't feature a lengthy coldish spell)

2003 - a mixed month but often bright with repeated cold outbreaks mixed with milder ones. Like the preceding year started mild and wet but rapidly became frosty and anticyclonic with a mixture of sunshine and fog. More changeable with a WNW-ly jet from around mid month with alternating cold and milder episodes but not much rain. A change around Christmas to a more cyclonic setup which produced a lot of rain in the south at times but was mostly dry in the north. Increasingly cold, as rare genuine cold zonality (had forgotten about this one when I commented elsewhere about March 1995 being the last such spell) stagnated leading to severe frosts. Like 2000, a thaw front moved in on the 31st.  6.5/10

2004 - another month with a mild start and end with a coldish spell in between, though less cold than the preceding two years. The coldish spell was mostly dull and misty down here. Milder after mid month but with the Christmas cold outbreak. 5.5/10

2005 - yet another December which started mild and wet but rapidly became colder. This time, like 2003 it turned frosty with the "Buncefield high". Rather like 2003 again this then evolved into an alternating cold/mild setup before a second and more intense cold spell developed late in the month. Once again a thaw arrived by the end of the month, a little earlier (the 30th) I think. 6.5/10

2006 - started very mild and very wet and persisted for longer than the previous years, until mid-month. Relatively short cold, frosty and foggy spell from mid-month to around or a little after Christmas Day, then mild, wet and windy again. Poorer than most of the above as a result, 4.5/10

2007 - once again a mild, wet start but yet another transition to cold and frosty earlier in the month, around a week in. Mostly cold, frosty and foggy until the 22nd when it turned much milder. The rest of the month was mild and changeable but less so than I remember, I'm sure it was mild and wet right up to New Year's Eve yet the synoptics suggest a fairly anticyclonic end to the year. 6/10

2008 - a more notably cold December than many of the above. Cold and frosty first week, then mild mid-month but became cold and dry, if dull, before Christmas. Remained that way until the end of the year. A very dry month, if I remember right. 7/10

2009 - the most notable of the lot but started extremely mild and very, very wet with a day-darkness event here in the opening days resulting in street lights coming on at 2pm. This was a particularly active convective trough within a very cyclonic setup. The lows gradually retrogressed into the Atlantic allowing colder, drier air in from the east and it became progressively colder with heavy settling snow in some parts of Hampshire around the 20th-23rd. Slightly mild for a few days round Christmas but becoming cold again at the end. 8/10

So definitely a decade with few real stinkers. Of note is how so many of these Decembers started mild with cold spells developing about a week in, and (in some years) a further mildening then taking place around Christmas.

I'd say the 00s were somewhat better than the 90s but both were, surprisingly, considerably better than the 80s which had one very cold December and nine mild ones.

 

Edited by Summer8906
Posted
  • Location: Cheshire
  • Location: Cheshire
Posted
16 hours ago, LetItSnow said:

To be fair, while the Xmas period was good the first half of the month was extremely mild and extremely wet, just a continuation of that incredibly wet autumn.

I remember well returning to Cheshire on 6th December 2000 from a family funeral in Derbyshire. It poured most of the way back, and there was serious flooding (again!) back in Cheshire. However, the rain cleared shortly after I arrived home and the night was cold and clear, and that proved to be the end of the incredibly wet autumn, my first in Cheshire, so the rest of the month must have been at least dry or drier, if nothing else. 

Posted
  • Location: Saddleworth, historically West Yorks, 225m asl
  • Weather Preferences: All 4 seasons and a good mixture of everything and anything!
  • Location: Saddleworth, historically West Yorks, 225m asl
Posted (edited)

2000, 2001, cold and sometimes snowy during festive week. (I think one of these had a white Xmas for my location but not sure which).
2002, a tad boring and snow free
2003, bit of a mixed month with a few isolated cold shots, nothing too memorable but a few snow coverings at times, and a snowy NYE
2004, direct white Xmas for me from a brief but potent NWly
2005, coolish/cold at times and also dry. I think my location did receive some snowfall but not sure when.
2006, 2007 - both very forgettable. I do however have some pictures taken Xmas Eve morning 2006 which shows a harsh frost about, so maybe slightly seasonal at times but certainly snow-free, both 06 and 07. 
2007 I believe at the very end of Dec we were very close to tapping into some extremely cold air from an E'ly but it failed within about the +120hrs timeframe, probably causing a meltdown on this forum though someone may wish to correct me there.
2008, very very seasonal, with a potent Nly blast at the start of the month and a cool but dry final third or so.
2009, no comment needed, exceptionally wintry in 2nd half. 

All in all I'd say yes a decent decade for Decembers. (if wintry weather is what you want).
In fact, does it even beat the 70s, 80s and 90s? Or at least match them?

@Jackmonday06 thanks for the thread, always love a Noughties winters based thread, very nostalgic for me and I have some great memories, my favourite decade.

Edited by StretfordEnd1996
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine and 15-25c
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
Posted

every decade seems to have at least one stand out Dec

Dec 1962

Dec 1978

Dec 1981

Dec 1995

Dec 2009

Dec 2010 

Personally outside of Dec 2009 the 2000s were not much to right home about ..the same can be said of the 1980s..the 1990s has a bit more interest as does the 1970s

Posted
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine and 15-25c
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
Posted (edited)

 Jackmonday06 im pretty sure it has never really snowed on Xmas day apart from a few flurries ..coldest Xmas day would be 2021 when it got down close to -40c..coldest Dec since i have been here was Dec 2022 with a mean CET of -18c ..been here since 2010

Edited by cheeky_monkey
Posted
  • Location: Scunthorpe
  • Location: Scunthorpe
Posted

 cheeky_monkey

3 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

every decade seems to have at least one stand out Dec

Dec 1962

Dec 1978

Dec 1981

Dec 1995

Dec 2009

Dec 2010 

So far for the 2020's I'd say Dec 2022

The 1950's probably Dec 1950

The 1940's probably between Dec 1940 and 1946

The 1930's either Dec 1933 or 1939

 

What about Dec 1976 over 1978?

 

Posted
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine and 15-25c
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
Posted

 SqueakheartLW interesting thing about winter 76-77 is that synoptically esp Dec and Jan it was very close to being similar to winter of 78-79 had the blocking played ball 

Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Posted (edited)

In the 1930s, December 1938 sticks out to me, a cold snowy easterly spell during the week before Christmas and for a large area of the country, the snow was still lying on Christmas Day.

image.thumb.png.2a33241e2eff3d6d2c1e227a212ca7e7.png

 

Edited by Thundery wintry showers
Poor image positioning
Posted
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow Nov - Feb. Thunderstorms, 20-29°C and sun any time!
  • Location: Coventry, 95m asl
Posted
4 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

every decade seems to have at least one stand out Dec

Dec 1962

Dec 1978

Dec 1981

Dec 1995

Dec 2009

Dec 2010 

 

17 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

So far for the 2020's I'd say Dec 2022

It would be a sad state of affair if 2022 ends up being the only December with any real interest for cold / snow this decade. Just 5 more Decembers to go until we find out if that's the case 🫠

  • Like 1

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