The cold spell

[willinkent]

Its flurrying here in faversham. Very icy still -1c here...... snow from last night n melt completely frozen over...... crunchy underfoot

[tcc]

2 snow showers and 1 sleet shower this morning. The second snow shower was the heaviest of the this cold snap and gave a light dusting. A lovey surprise! So that's 4 days on the trot I've seen snow falling! Not a bad spell at all!

[Essan]

Cold spell?

It's mid january. 4 consecutive frosts in mid january does not a cold spell make.

It's a bit like saying 4 nights with the temp staying in the mid teens makes a heatwave in summer.

[TP85]

It was pretty good here in West Sussex, more laying snow than I've seen in a few years, even if it didn't hang around for long.

[Stargazer]

Is it actually -6 in Benson? :blink:

Wouldn't be surprised to hear that. Benson is a notable cold spot (probably helped by all that concrete at the RAF base). In central Reading it was the coldest night of the season so far (I recorded -1.7 and the university, in the suburbs, -2.4). On a cold clear night Benson can be another 3-4 degrees colder than that. ISTR Benson had a very rare air frost in June 2005.

[Edit - METAR data from wunderground.com shows last night's min at Benson at -4. Or if you prefer you could have Benson, Illinois at -24 ]

Edited January 26, 2007 by Stargazer

[Snowyowl9]

It was pretty good here in West Sussex, more laying snow than I've seen in a few years, even if it didn't hang around for long.

Nice pics!

That`s the type of snow I like to see, not wet stuff as that type will drift if the temps stay low and wind of course.

The last traces of snow here are disappearing now but it`s not going as quickly as that as it`s been frozen over so it`s more like icey snow,it`ll be gone by later though :blink:

[mezzacyclone]

St Helens is currently eurpting Krakatoa is doing much at the present time but isn't likely to go bang in a big style.

As for over doing Snow depths someone once drove up our road and posted on here that there was deep snow. Strange as the only covering was a slight patchy dusting on one side of the road. I believe the same person posted a foot of Snow one Christmas which again was strange as I was driving in it and there was only about an inch cover and the Snow soon stopped for the day.

This will no doubt have been a reporter from the 'Sheffield Star', I take "VIZ" magazine views more seriously Pit, our local paper ramps with delirious scare-mongering madness the moment the temp drops below 40'F as this weeks headlines of "severe Blizzards" and banality the likes of "Arctic fever grips region" is enough to make me condemn the paper as pure waffle to anyone who buys it.

The cold spell has been a classic toppler with one night reaching a lowest of -1.6C and not enough snowfall to even detect visible looking out my windows,

So i`ll give it 2 out of 10 for me, both in anticipation (as i did not get overly drawn beforehand) and overall after the post mortem.

:blink: (whistlin Dixie for the Northern + eastern Heights)

[Snowly does it]

The last patches of snow have left here now, notwithstanding the odd lump from some medium sized snowmen that someone miraculously created from a smallish fall!

I would say this gets 5/10 for me - somewhere below the Dec 05 Easterly and somewhere above the February/March 06 snowfall which avoided my area scrupulously.

Longer lived than the Jan 04 thundersnow event, but less impact, nowhere near as good as the Feb 05 spell.

For reference Jan 87 was 9/10 and Feb 91 8.5/1 with Dec 05 scoring 6.5/10

[TEITS]

I would give this cold spell 6/10. Although it was far too short it delivered more snow than I expected plus it made a very welcome contrast to the dreadful two months that preceeded it. By comparison the Dec 05 would get 7/10 as well as the Feb 05 spell.

8s 9s and 10/10 ratings are reserved for the elusive, longer and more severe sub-zero freeze-ups!

Tamara

I especially love your first pic Tamara the orange glow from the streetlamp lighting up the snowfall is magical.

[andrew.nixon@lineone.net]

Cold Spell? Total non-event for lowland Scotland. Neither Perth (where I live) nor Dundee (where I work) had a single snowflake! Lowest temperature of -4C on Thursday morning but most nights it hovered at +2C. What happened? :blink:

[Stratos Ferric]

Cold spell?

It's mid january. 4 consecutive frosts in mid january does not a cold spell make.

It's a bit like saying 4 nights with the temp staying in the mid teens makes a heatwave in summer.

It really is astonishing how perspectives have changed. I guess if you were born mid 80s on you have no experience of real sustained cold, or - for most - of single heavy snow events.

Even "The Times" yesterday used the phrase "the modern climate". The last week's weather would, twenty or so years ago, have been not far removed from a typical winter's week, rather than marking - as my be the case this year - the winter extreme.

I know one or two on here still hang on to the notion that another '63 is around the corner, and that those of us who sensibly caution otherwise are just "mild rampers", but facts is facts. Winter in the UK, if not yet dead, is certainly very ill, and probably terminally so.

----

FOOTNOTE: Checking Philip's plots, my "wet finger" for the last 4 days is about 4C: nothing special really: he observes in his own notes "no notable temperatures". Whilst I don't really agree with Yeti's disapointment in the moment (this was NEVER going to be a huge event, and so long as you pick and choose who's forecasts for 5-20cm of snow you read that should be clear - don't ust read what you want to see, read everything, particularly from the more "reliable" sources), in the biger picture this is generally the way of things nowadays. Huge modification. When I was a kid the peak of a N'ly (2-3 days in) would yield max's of no more than 0-1C in the north, maybe 1-2 higher in the south. What northerlies have NEVER reliably delivered, however, is widespread heavy snow, although even here, to the extent that they used to do so occasionally, they almost never do now.

Edited January 26, 2007 by Stratos Ferric

[Andy Bown]

Is it actually -6 in Benson? :blink:

I expect it was, Yeovilton got down to -4.3c at 01.00 and -4c was the minimum I recorded last night. A shame for Yeovilton that it then clouded over as an even lower temperature was on the cards.

[Stargazer]

Trying to put it into perspective...if winter 63 was a 10 (I wasn't around to see it but the exceptional temperatures and number of consecutive days with lying snow are evidence enough to me), I'd put Dec 81 at 8, Jan 87 at 7 and Feb 91 at 7 too (the snow was actually deeper than 87 where I lived in Southampton, but didn't last as long). On that scale I think we had about a 4 in Reading (lying snow one morning, but still the most I've seen since I moved here in 2002).

[Snowly does it]

It really is astonishing how perspectives have changed. I guess if you were born mid 80s on you have no experience of real sustained cold, or - for most - of single heavy snow events.

Even "The Times" yesterday used the phrase "the modern climate". The last week's weather would, twenty or so years ago, have been not far removed from a typical winter's week, rather than marking - as my be the case this year - the winter extreme.

I know one or two on here still hang on to the notion that another '63 is around the corner, and that those of us who sensibly caution otherwise are just "mild rampers", but facts is facts. Winter in the UK, if not yet dead, is certainly very ill, and probably terminally so.

Well SF, it certainly isn't dead as the below average temperatures and snowfall of the last 4 days would testify.

Perspectives have indeed changed, I certainly do not expect to ever see a 63 or 47 or even a 78/79, but I am confident that an 87 or 91 is possible, if not for a month long basis, certainly the last few winters have shown that one week and two week cold snaps are still the order of the day at some point in winter.

Sustainability is the weakness now you are right though, individual snaps can still (and do still) produce but the 3 and 4 week freeze ups are missing.

I had a theory the other night. Is GW responsible for the predominately positive NAO of recent times? If it is not and you take it out of the equation if it flips predomintely negative, wherein our winters then? Is it partly GW and partly the zonal aspect or is it GW causing zonality to be more prevalent and thereby exacerbating the effect?

Just seems that for what, a one degree rise, we appear to have lost an awful lot from the bottom line of expectations. We will lsoe more as time goes on and things do not change for the better but can we backtrack a bit if we get a run on negative NAO? I am not sure.

[Wosser]

Was there a cold spell? Think it missed us

[Thundery wintry showers]

My views are definitely more aligned with Stratos Ferric's views on this. Until 2002, the general rule of thumb for the North East was that if we picked up a northerly sourced above 70N from December through March, we could expect temperatures low enough for falling snow within 24 hours of the commencement of the northerly. 48 hours in, and from December through to mid February we'd be expecting maxima no higher than around 2C. The same assessment applied to NE'lys as well for inland areas, though at the coast they have always been more marginal. Not any more, though.

I agree that northerlies have never been a reliable source of widespread snow- the main reason for this, though, traditionally used to be lack of precipitation away from favoured areas, rather than it not being cold enough. I remember the winter of 1998/99 as a classic example; cold snaps came almost entirely from short-lived northerlies and most places were largely snowless, but some east-coast counties (e.g. Aberdeen, Sunderland, Lowestoft) actually had quite a snowy winter by recent standards. From that, it can be deduced that the northerlies were cold enough; they just didn't deliver much precipitation.

It's all highly consistent with Terminal Moraine's article that suggested that our cold air sources hadn't warmed significantly in the reference period extending from the 1980s through to 2002, and the observation that our cold air sources seem to have warmed significantly since then.

The setup was not perfect for snow lovers, there was some extra modification around the top of the 'high' for northern and western areas (though I suspect that this may not have happened if we didn't have those >2C SST anomalies around Iceland/Greenland)- and the south managed to get some marginal snow events, thanks to a draw of less modified air from the northeast that may have passed over western Scandinavia rather than straight across the ocean. Thus, I conclude that winter in the UK is not dead yet, but it's certainly looking ill at the moment.

[paul tall]

I'll give the cold spell 0/10.

As an aside, it really is a sad state of affairs when you have people busting their chops over 1-2cm, or 2-3cm of snow. Thats a dusting, not "heavy snow" or a "thick layer".

[M'Lady]

It wasn't exactly a cold spell... it got a bit chilly, but that's about it really.

Meh.

[Freezing-Point]

It wasn't exactly a cold spell... it got a bit chilly, but that's about it really.

Meh.

My thoughts entirely. Its was just a cool spell. The air mass was never from a real cold source and with the high SST's, widespread cold or snow was never on the cards.

Lets just hope we do get a cold spell this winter....????

What this cool spell had confirmed again, is that its impossible to predict snowfall positions and amounts, even 12 hours before things can change massively. I will now be taking all early warnings / risk disruption / areas to be worst hit with a pinch of salt.

best thing is watching the radar and your local lampost!!!

[Snow Queen one]

Well down here it was a cold spell the lake in our park was frozen today.

[Snowyowl9]

Well down here it was a cold spell the lake in our park was frozen today.

You must of had it colder but the frosts were`t bad at all the ice is quite thick and the ground was hard.

It was better than this which only gave 2 frosts.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/2004/...00120040117.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/2004/...00120040118.png

But so far this January I`ve only recorded 4 air frosts all from this cold snap which is better than a 1/2 day toppler 5 if you count 0.3c.

As last Jan I had 13 air frosts and more snow.

Snow grains that day though with an extra dusting and 0.5c max.

Snow the following day with a good covering.

I`d love to see an easterly like last winter I lost count how many easterly days we had

But a NW is nice to see today even even though it`s milder makes a change after those long run of SW winds.

[kold weather]

Actually had a suprise snow shower this morning with freezing rain before it turned back to snow, was really intresting because tohugh the freezing rain was light you could see the little puddle freezing over fairly readily as soon as it hit, within a couple of minutes it turned to snow and got a very light dusting in a few places.

[The PIT]

Cold spell or not cold spell. Average tempo four us mostly 2C below normal. That make sit a cold spell me thinks.

[TP85]

As an aside, it really is a sad state of affairs when you have people busting their chops over 1-2cm, or 2-3cm of snow. Thats a dusting, not "heavy snow" or a "thick layer".

That might be the case in your location, but in the south, where most of the snow happened to fall in this spell of weather, 2-3cm is a big deal. I don't think anyone in their right mind would describe it as a pasting or anything like that, but it is significant, because it doesn't happen every year. I had 4-5 cm of snow on Wednesday which basically lasted for the morning. For people in favoured locations for snow, that might not seem like much, but for me it was quite major, because I've not seen that much snow lying in my location for quite some time. Therefore, personally speaking, it's been a good cold spell for me, even though it hasn't been at all potent nationwide.

I suppose this cold snap just highlights the differences between the north and the south.

[BristolBlizzard]

That might be the case in your location, but in the south, where most of the snow happened to fall in this spell of weather, 2-3cm is a big deal. I don't think anyone in their right mind would describe it as a pasting or anything like that, but it is significant, because it doesn't happen every year. I had 4-5 cm of snow on Wednesday which basically lasted for the morning. For people in favoured locations for snow, that might not seem like much, but for me it was quite major, because I've not seen that much snow lying in my location for quite some time. Therefore, personally speaking, it's been a good cold spell for me, even though it hasn't been at all potent nationwide.

I suppose this cold snap just highlights the differences between the north and the south.

I agree.. 2-3cm is the best for sledging tbh Too much snow and you don't move.