Modern Era

[Stratos Ferric]

Can someone tell me who started this catchphrase off , it seems to be the best words to use now... I find it tiresom that even apparant experienced forecasters on this site are using it... Example - "Lots of snow in the north east well make the most of it , its the christmas pudding" The last three years or so the words global warming was used for the lack of snow or the future forecasting of the lack of snow now its christmas pudding. When did this apparant christmas pudding start then? , 1990's what.

One person says BLING , then everyone uses it... Now one person started christmas pudding now lots of people are using it, think i'll start my own stupid words up huzzle flump

Well, I'm sure I was one of the first users, if not in fact the person who coined the phrase in the meteorological context here on N-W (I also claim SlowWatch by the way, as well as a whole host of alternative words for the 'even larger teapot' [to use the original phrase].

First up, I really don't understand your objection. English is there to be used, it is a beautful and precise language (not that you'd always know it on the basis of some posts in here, though there are a few like Noggin, TWS, WiB, Snow Maiden, TM, OON, Shugee, ACB, Roger, P3 [and others I'm sure] who have, in this reader's eye, a very good skill), and so long as a case can be made for the use of a phrase then a dislike on the basis of individual preference as no more valid than saying you prefer purple to orange.

So, what would my case be for the 'even larger teapot'. YOu could do a lot worse than see NEB's rant in the rant thread this afternoon. Or go see my own analysis in the seasonal analysis section re 'what this winter might hold'. Or see the discussion in the Enviro section. The simple fact is, and this is undeniable I'm afraid, that since 1997 we have not had a decent cold winter. The 'christmas pudding' discussion has been hosted on here before, and the concensus was that things changed with the two warm years in the late 80s, and I concur that this was the first of the very warm, if not the last of the really cold.

The point of the 'even larger teapot' is to define a very different type of season to the one that those of us aged 35 or over, say, can recall. I suspect, just as was the case for me listening to my parents talk about 1940, 1947 and 1963, that younger folk - I suspect you are in that group - cannot really grasp just how severe wintry weather could be back then, and I know that 1979 was not a patch on 1963 for the quantity and dispersion of the snow. Mere words and descriptions give in only one dimension what was really a 4D event. If you have no recall of what things were like before the even larger teapot, then it's no surprise that the phrase rings hollow.

However, believe me, there was a time when TV didn't come out of cables but telephone calls always did. When it wasn't possible to purchase McDonalds, much less bring a family up on the stuff. Shops didn't use to open routinely on Sunday and pubs closed for the afternoon. Football matches were nearly all played at 3pm on Saturday, and the League Championship was not dominated by twop or three clubs incessantly. Cricketers usually walked instead of waiting for the umpire, and people could ride the top deck of a bus withouth being fearful of gangs of kids. Petrol stations had little men who filled the car up for you, and the post was delivered twice a day. Honestly, all of those things happened, and usually it also used to snow in winter, often there would be a decent snowfall before Christmas, and in the north the drifts on the hills would still be there come April. And when it snowed, it wasn't measured in mm, but in inches, and sometimes even in feet.

I tell you, it was a different time, and given that, the current period is not deserving of the same lable as if that label de3scribes the same contents: it does not I'm afraid. Hence, I shall stick with the 'even larger teapot' until such time as the contents of the even larger teapot no longer reflect the content assumed by the label on the can.

No such thing as the "christmas pudding/winter" in my opinion. I have never heard such a ridiculous term in my time on weather forums. As far as I am concerned its merely used to try and wind people up and is best ignored. ...

I'd welcome enlightenment as to what possible cause for being wound-up there is in the use of a standard adjective + noun phrase such as even larger teapot. If there was some un-PC element in the phrase, and it was acttacking a person, fair enough, but protestation like that is meteorological PC gone mad in my opinion.

[moogyboobles]

Petrol stations had little men who filled the car up for you, and the post was delivered twice a day. Honestly, all of those things happened, and usually it also used to snow in winter, often there would be a decent snowfall before Christmas, and in the north the drifts on the hills would still be there come April. And when it snowed, it wasn't measured in mm, but in inches, and sometimes even in feet.

Where I live we still have little men (although not so little and sometimes women) fill up your car with petrol.

As for the post, lucky if I get any at all before 4pm!

[Paul Sherman]

Well, I'm sure I was one of the first users, if not in fact the person who coined the phrase in the meteorological context here on N-W (I also claim SlowWatch by the way, as well as a whole host of alternative words for the 'modern winter' [to use the original phrase].

First up, I really don't understand your objection. English is there to be used, it is a beautful and precise language (not that you'd always know it on the basis of some posts in here, though there are a few like Noggin, TWS, WiB, Snow Maiden, TM, OON, Shugee, ACB, Roger, P3 [and others I'm sure] who have, in this reader's eye, a very good skill), and so long as a case can be made for the use of a phrase then a dislike on the basis of individual preference as no more valid than saying you prefer purple to orange.

So, what would my case be for the 'modern winter'. YOu could do a lot worse than see NEB's rant in the rant thread this afternoon. Or go see my own analysis in the seasonal analysis section re 'what this winter might hold'. Or see the discussion in the Enviro section. The simple fact is, and this is undeniable I'm afraid, that since 1997 we have not had a decent cold winter. The 'modern era' discussion has been hosted on here before, and the concensus was that things changed with the two warm years in the late 80s, and I concur that this was the first of the very warm, if not the last of the really cold.

The point of the 'modern winter' is to define a very different type of season to the one that those of us aged 35 or over, say, can recall. I suspect, just as was the case for me listening to my parents talk about 1940, 1947 and 1963, that younger folk - I suspect you are in that group - cannot really grasp just how severe wintry weather could be back then, and I know that 1979 was not a patch on 1963 for the quantity and dispersion of the snow. Mere words and descriptions give in only one dimension what was really a 4D event. If you have no recall of what things were like before the modern winter, then it's no surprise that the phrase rings hollow.

However, believe me, there was a time when TV didn't come out of cables but telephone calls always did. When it wasn't possible to purchase McDonalds, much less bring a family up on the stuff. Shops didn't use to open routinely on Sunday and pubs closed for the afternoon. Football matches were nearly all played at 3pm on Saturday, and the League Championship was not dominated by twop or three clubs incessantly. Cricketers usually walked instead of waiting for the umpire, and people could ride the top deck of a bus withouth being fearful of gangs of kids. Petrol stations had little men who filled the car up for you, and the post was delivered twice a day. Honestly, all of those things happened, and usually it also used to snow in winter, often there would be a decent snowfall before Christmas, and in the north the drifts on the hills would still be there come April. And when it snowed, it wasn't measured in mm, but in inches, and sometimes even in feet.

I tell you, it was a different time, and given that, the current period is not deserving of the same lable as if that label de3scribes the same contents: it does not I'm afraid. Hence, I shall stick with the 'modern winter' until such time as the contents of the modern winter no longer reflect the content assumed by the label on the can.

I'd welcome enlightenment as to what possible cause for being wound-up there is in the use of a standard adjective + noun phrase such as modern winter. If there was some un-PC element in the phrase, and it was acttacking a person, fair enough, but protestation like that is meteorological PC gone mad in my opinion.

SF, Like I Said the other day, I have nothing against the phrase "Modern Wonter" (I did that on purpose BTW)

The only reason I highlighted it was because lots of members send Complaints to the Mods when it is used in nearly every sentence on the Model Thread, sifting through tens of posts every time you log on is not pleasant.

I agree with you about the rubbish winters we have nowadays compared with 79,81,84,87,91 etc and that things have changed, I also agree with you about how all the FA Cup matches should be played on the 1st Sat in January, although they were usually always Postponed due to Snowbound Pitches

[Azores Hi]

Before we label this new era, what was the last one called? Surely that was the christmas pudding at the time. I get confused easily you see.

[Peter Henderson]

The recent run of winters that have been milder with less snow isn't down to this "even larger teapot" rubbish.

Perhaps the term is somewhat misleading Paul but winters definitely do seem to have changed over the last decade and a half or so. When I was young (in the 60/70's) a winter without any snow at all was very unusual. Apart from a couple mild ones in the mid seventies a snowless winter was a rare event. Now we are lucky to get any frost let alone snow in a winter. A far cry from when I was young when you would have day after day of frost that persited right through the day.

The hullabaloo over the current 48 hr. slightly cold spell on other threads just shows how mild winters have become. Whether this is due to global warming or merely changing weather paterns remains to be seen. I have seen weather charts in the summer that had they been repeated in the middle of Jan./Feb. we would have had betterly cold weather with large snowfalls. Don't forget though, that continental air is warm in the summer so the air that brings us those long hot thundery days in June/July/August is the same that will one day bring a cold/snowy winter.

One thing is sure though. We are long overdue a vey cold winter and not just one. We are due a run of them especially in light of the sucsession of very mild winters recently. The British weather has a habit of evening itself out.....eventually.

Just when this will happen is anyones guess !

Edited January 3, 2008 by Peter Henderson

[chionomaniac]

Before we label this new era, what was the last one called? Surely that was the modern era at the time. I get confused easily you see.

I agree! But I think for this particular era it may be that reading "modern era" is synominous with "mild era" and to all snow lovers that is very frustrating!(but probably true)

c

[Optimus Prime]

The only time I remember there not being snow recently was;

2005/2006 (but November 2005 produced a heavy ice shower)

2001/2002

Although late December 2001 produced some snow, January and February 2002 were terrible. Always very mild and very little frost after a cold beginning.

I remember the late 90s being exceptionally bad for cold and snow. Often then not it snowed a little but was never cold enough to settle. I recall a forecast predicting 4 inches of snow in the home countries in the late 90s. But instead, like February 2005 it snowed heavily all day but never settled.

Things seemed to have slightly improved during the start of this century. Snowfalls in December 2001, January 2003. January and February 2004, February 2005 and March 2005 2006 and January and February 2007. Best being January 2003 and February 2007.

March 2006 did turn a few heads with that very cold first half. At one stage it was looking possible it may be colder then 1962, but the 'Modern' era soon put a stop to that.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Optimus Prime

[Thundery wintry showers]

One irony is that while most of northern and western Britain have seen much less snow in the 2000s than in the 1990s, parts of the south (southeast especially) may have seen slightly more snow in the past decade. It illustrates the decline of northerlies and north-westerlies, and the various attempts at easterlies that have delivered snow for some of the south (but invariably been rather marginal).

Whatever the reasons are, though, it's hard to dispute the notion that temperatures are showing an upward trend, not just in the UK but globally, and that the jet has been notably strong and tracking further and further north in recent decades. I think some have been perhaps over-zealous in their use of 'modern winter' (most especially, blaming all cold snap failures on the 'modern winter') but fact is, since the late 1980s, we've moved into a prolonged spell of much milder and more snowless winters than anything that's gone since at least the 1930s, apart from perhaps the 1971-76 blip. I also doubt that, on the whole, the 1920s or 1930s were quite as snowless as the 2000s- I came across big snow events in winters 1926, 1928, 1929, 1938 for example.

[mackerel sky]

The whole term is lost on me. Its like me suggesting that winters now are rubbish, but forgetting I moved 200 miles south 10 years ago, which I did. Its a very lazy term that can just be thrown into the pot without any thought.

[Bobby]

All it refers to is a period of very mild winters which nobody can deny. I still really don't get why it's so controversial. Is it because people think it has to do with AGW and many people are extremely hostile to the theory? Me thinks that's it.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Magpie

[Stratos Ferric]

... I also agree with you about how all the FA Cup matches should be played on the 1st Sat in January, although they were usually always Postponed due to Snowbound Pitches

I remember in 1979 they were still playing third round games the weekend of the fifth round, such was the carnage. I also remember vividly John Motson on Focus, in the 90s I think, being interviewed at Wycombe (when they were still not in the top tier of the pyramid), stood in the middle of the pitch, amidst a huge snowstorm.

Do they still have the Pools Panel. After 1979 (not immediately, but shortly thereafter if I recall correctly) the rules were changed so that if as few as something like five matches were psotponed the panel would sit, but in 1979 the rules were much more relaxed and something like a third of the Programme needed to be down (maybe it was twelve games - someone will know or look it up). I do recall Grandstand actually televising the results of the deliberations on at least one occasion, with Arthur Ellis (yes, that one, of Stuart HaHaHaHahaaaaaaaahall fame) chairing the panel, when something like forty games were cancelled.

It really was a different time.

All it refers to is a period of very mild winters which nobody can deny. I still really don't get why it's so controversial. Is it because people think it has to do with AGW and many people are extremely hostile to the theory? Me thinks that's it.

That, and the fact that a lot of people on snowhope (the model thread - which might better be titled no-hope most of the time) probably don't want to wake up to the reality that if there really is any substance to it, the thing we all long for (snowy winters) probably are disappearing into an ever warming sunset. It's like someone with a chronic illness not wanting to hear the name as if doing so makes the symptom worse, and not hearing it might make it not true.

The whole term is lost on me. Its like me suggesting that winters now are rubbish, but forgetting I moved 200 miles south 10 years ago, which I did. Its a very lazy term that can just be thrown into the pot without any thought.

I haven't moved though, and have had at least a foot in this area for forty years plus, and I'll tell you, they've still got a lot worse (as viewed from the cold fan's perspective).

Seeing as the climate has and will continue to change over time, then "christmas pudding" can always be used ... Each one a "christmas pudding" to those living in those times.

Very sensible post. Mr D further back mentions the 20's as another example. MOdern is simply of the moment, but when applied to, say, fashion, carries with it that other clothes are now passé. FOr me this is the fact of the even larger teapot. The weather that used to be typical, if not ubiquitous, is now so atypical as to warrant a label that separates the two. We could just keep saying "the worst winters are nothing like as cold and wintry as they used to be, and the average is much less wintry". This latter is very much a statement of fact, but it's much easier, on my part, to simply talk about 'the even larger teapot'. Most people know roughly what is meant, unless it's all you've ever known.

When I was a kid it was an astonishing thing to learn that sometimes buildings get knocked down and replaced. When all you've ever known is things as they are then the potential for things ever to be differently, perhaps markedly so, may seem strange, and if that difference can be perceived as preferable then I could even understand why people might, sometimes, resent it.

[Gray-Wolf]

How about 'post dimmed'? This would enable you to extrapolate the temps pre and post dimming and dump the 'tainted years' .Whadya think?

[Thundery wintry showers]

I did a detailed analysis of the snowiness of Britain's winters, evaluating the winters' snow events in terms of how widespread/significant they were, to give each winter a numerical score. My analysis suggested that the 1900s through 1930s were relatively snow free (the 1900s actually more so than the 1920s and 1930s), there was then a period of frequent snowy winters from the 1940s to late 1980s with a hiccup in 1971-76, and then a sharp decline to a lower snowiness since 1988. Admittedly, I can't vouch for the accuracy of my coverage of the decades before 1950, but I saw enough to suggest that even the 1900s, 1920s and 1930s were generally snowier than the 2000s.

Brocanica's 1875+ analysis, updated by Dave O'Hara and homogenised pretty well by Dave in his latest update, makes equally grim reading for snow lovers.

The mean annual frequency of snow cover in the South Shields area was about 13 days per year over 1961-90, and 11 days over 1971-2000. However, in the 1990s this had reduced to around 8 days, and has reduced further to around 6 days for the 2000s.

In Lancaster, the 1961-90 average was about 9 or 10 days, but the 1971-2000 average had reduced to 6 days, the 1990s averaged 5 days (assisted by relatively snowy winters in 1993/94, 1994/95 and more especially 1995/96), and the 2000s so far have averaged just two or three days per year.

[Terminal Moraine]

The objectors to the use of the term' even larger teapot' seem to regard it as being synonymous with the user precluding the occurrence of a cold winter in the future, rather than a generic term for what we have been experiencing for the last 20 years or so; it should be realised that is only a descriptive expression, not a forecast or even a hex on what might happen if it were not used.

The term would be equally valid ( and probably much less subject to criticism ) if we had just experienced a 20 year period of severe winters and it was being applied to that, or even if we were experiencing a period of great volatility with severe winters alternating with very mild ones.

If we eventually get a few winters on a par with 1979 then the even larger teapot will have come to an end; it will then be the start of a new even larger teapot.

T.M

[North-Easterly Blast]

December 1992 was also a colder than average month due to an anticyclonic block sat over the UK like the one in mid December this year, and there was no deep cold air from the north or east that month.

[Snowly does it]

As a description, no problem.

As a lazy way out of examining why individual events did not deliver as compared to an earlier time - woeful.

As a whinging device - even worse.

[Stratos Ferric]

thts not true...this has happened on many occasions before...just that no one remembers because it wasnt news worthy or nobody cared...but if u trawl through the charts for the last 100 winters the scenario being played out now has happened many times...so its not something that is a result of modern day synoptics.

Monkey, have you actually bothered to check any data? I get astonished by the tendency of some on N-W to make bold statements that are so far removed the reality as to be beyond risible. There has been no period of sustained winter warmth of the like we have seen in the last ten years in the measured CET record. The 20's ran it close, but managed a couple of winters when the D-F average came in sub 4. 1996 is the last time it happened. IN the 60s 3C was rarely breached - and, amrk this, that was the average across three months - we can't even register a sub four month nowadays. Let's stop this nonsense that 'it's happened before'. It has not, not even remotely, not in the measured record.

[Snowly does it]

we can't even register a sub four month nowadays.

I understand your frustration sometimes SF but you don't help yourself when you post things like this.

Feb 2006, Feb 2003 and Jan and Dec of 2001 all meet this criteria - about 15% of the winter months of this century, a long way from 'can't'

Thats not an argument against the rest of your point.

[Mondy]

Jeez, you lot!

This is so old hat. The term christmas pudding is already historical in its very nature.

Watch out for the term Cooling Era - coming soon to a landmass near you.

Do you know something. I read on here over the New Year - i'm guessing a few had one too many Tio Pepe - that in 10 years time we not even be here! Yes, that's right, even though good old 'Sol is about to wind himself back up again and do what only he can do naturally.

So this is not the christmas pudding - we're either cooling or dying soon //¬ ¬//

*God, what a mess this place can become if you read too much in to every post

Edited January 3, 2008 by Mondy

[Stratos Ferric]

I understand your frustration sometimes SF but you don't help yourself when you post things like this.

Feb 2006, Feb 2003 and Jan and Dec of 2001 all meet this criteria - about 15% of the winter months of this century, a long way from 'can't'

Thats not an argument against the rest of your point.

Profuse apologies - I knew it was wrong when I typed it - should be sub 3 of course.

The objectors to the use of the term' even larger teapot' seem to regard it as being synonymous with the user precluding the occurrence of a cold winter in the future, rather than a generic term for what we have been experiencing for the last 20 years or so; it should be realised that is only a descriptive expression, not a forecast or even a hex on what might happen if it were not used.

The term would be equally valid ( and probably much less subject to criticism ) if we had just experienced a 20 year period of severe winters and it was being applied to that, or even if we were experiencing a period of great volatility with severe winters alternating with very mild ones.

If we eventually get a few winters on a par with 1979 then the even larger teapot will have come to an end; it will then be the start of a new even larger teapot.

T.M

Precisely TM. For me the labelling is simply to make distinct a difference, not to be directional about the difference. As Mondy says, if we start to cool, and then stay cool at a new rebased level, then we'll be into a post-modern or new modern phase.

Did it snow there today TM?

Edited January 3, 2008 by Stratos Ferric

[Snowly does it]

Profuse apologies - I knew it was wrong when I typed it - should be sub 3 of course.

No need to apologise, not in these modern times of ours.

[Terminal Moraine]

Did it snow there today TM?

A few light flurries early this morning and a few flakes blowing in the wind during the day, S.F. Buxton had just enough to whiten the ground this morning apparantly; the morning showers were a little heavier there.

T.M

[acbrixton]

Like other non-technical expressions used to describe meteorological/climatic matters (see ‘bartlett’ or ‘close to average’) ‘the even larger teapot’ is a useful shorthand expression but is, necessarily, somewhat imprecise. So far as I understand it the term describes the winters from 1987/8 to date. Broadly, such winters have been mild and have lacked any prolonged (or often, any) severe cold spells and a lack of widespread significant snowfall. Such cold as there is tends to be a product of anticyclonic inversions as opposed to cold polar or continental air masses. Various explanations have been offered (that to my untutored mind appear to be complementary): warm sst anomalies, increased cyclogenesis, a northward tracking Polar Jet, positive AO/NAO indices.

In early October Kevin Bradshaw/Mr Data and Julian/Jackone posted data setting out the incidence of

days per year with a CET mean of 0c or less from 1772 to date. I have broken the data down decadally showing average no. days per year with a mean less than or equal to 0c, fewer than/equal to 5 days, greater than or equal to 10/20/40 days, in an attempt to see if the data give some support to the idea of the even larger teapot. Obviously there are many other data sets relevant to the debate. It is true also that a day with a CET mean of 0c or less is, in truth a measure of very cold, as opposed to ‘commonplace’ cold. A further problem with the data I have tabulated and tried to interpret is, of course, that it cannot distinguish between cold inversions and polar/continental cold. Nonetheless the exercise is, I believe, useful.

We now have two full decades of the even larger teapot. Three things strike me as significant:

1. the anomalous warmth of the decade 1998-2007;

2. the fact that the generally mild winters of the decade 1988-1997 are close to other, earlier decades;

3. the anomalous cold of the decade immediately prior to the 20 years of the even larger teapot.

1. 2007-1998 is so far beyond recent warming trends as to raise the possibility that it may be a blip in an otherwise gently warming trend (cf. Arctic sea ice in 2007?); we will of course not know until we have data up to at least 2026. The average number of ‘cold days’ at 3.0 is markedly lower than the nearest three decades (averages from 6.8-7.1); 8 out of 10 years had 5 or fewer cold days: no other decade records more than 5; prolonged or repeated cold is entirely absent with no year recording more than 8 cold days: all other ‘mild’ decades record at least 3 years where there were 10 or more cold days.

2. The preceding decade whilst undoubtedly mild does not stand out, on this basis, as particularly anomalous: true the mean of 6.8 is the mildest bar 1998-2007 but it is only slightly milder than those recorded from 1918-1937 (7.1, 7. and is not dramatically milder than 1908-1917 at 8.4; with only 4 years recording 5 or fewer cold days it is, on one measure, colder than the decades 1908-1937 (all of which record 5 such years); it records 3 years where there are 10 or more (but less than 20) cold days as did 1918-1927.

3.As to 1978-1987 the cold seems highly unusual by 20th c standards but is also cold by those of the second half of the 19th c: the decadal mean of 15.4 days was only exceeded once in the 20th c, twice in the second half of the 19th c and twice in the first half of the 19th c. Taking the decadal aggregate of cold days equal to or greater than 10 in each year (7) only 4/25 decades, all in the mid 19th c or earlier, exceeded this and no decade in the 20th c equalled it. The mean of cold days per year of 15.4 was exceeded only once in the 20th c and only 6 times in the late 18/19th centuries, whilst the aggregate of 5 or fewer days at 1 was matched in 3 decades and only exceeded in 3 decades (1838-1847, 1808-1817 and 1798-1807).

It is at least arguable that part of the reason why we are so aware of recent mild winters is that immediately before we experienced an unusual concentration of cold winters or at least winters with prolonged/repeated cold spells. Those of us who grew up in that run of winters may unintentionally find ourselves using that decade of cold winters as the base line against which subsequent winters are to be judged. Be that as it may, it does not, of course, alter the anomalous nature of the winters in 1998-2007. However I wonder whether the winters of the preceding decade, 1988-1997, are judged too ‘harshly’ because they came immediately after such anomalous cold?

Would we use the term ‘even larger teapot’ if we had just experienced a decade such as 1988-1997? Almost certainly not as it was neither obviously anomalous and was only one decade. The significance of the ‘averagely mild’ decade 1988-1997 is first that it stood out coming after the anomalous cold of the immediately preceding decade and secondly was followed by a decade of anomalous warmth thus gaining significance both because we have 2 consecutive decades of mild-very mild winters and the temptation to infer that there is a continuing trend to milder winters.

Context is all.

1. Exceptionally prolonged severe cold (i.e. 40+days p.a.) has always been very rare (only 6 winters).

2. Very mild winters (i.e. 5 or less days) were quite common in the 20th c (approx 3.9 per decade), relatively unusual in the late 19th c (approx 2.4 per decade) and rare in the early 19th /18th centuries (approx 1.4 per decade).

3. Prolonged severe cold (i.e. 20+ days p.a.) was rare in the 20th c (1.0 per decade) but rather more common in the late 19th c (approx 2.8 per decade) and especially the early 19th /18th centuries (approx 3.9).

4. I have assumed that Hadley will not record the 2 December CET days with a mean of less than 0c that Manley has (it would merely change the mean to 3.2 from 3.0).

Regards

ACB

cet_0c_table_030108.doc

Edited January 3, 2008 by acbrixton

[Bartlett Low]

Many thanks for this very interesting post acbrixton, particularly the part highlighted below.

It is at least arguable that part of the reason why we are so aware of recent mild winters is that immediately before we experienced an unusual concentration of cold winters or at least winters with prolonged/repeated cold spells. Those of us who grew up in that run of winters may unintentionally find ourselves using that decade of cold winters as the base line against which subsequent winters are to be judged. Be that as it may, it does not, of course, alter the anomalous nature of the winters in 1998-2007. However I wonder whether the winters of the preceding decade, 1988-1997, are judged too ‘harshly’ because they came immediately after such anomalous cold?

[Stratos Ferric]

Like other non-technical expressions used to describe meteorological/climatic matters (see 'bartlett' or 'close to average') 'the even larger teapot' is a useful shorthand expression but is, necessarily, somewhat imprecise. ...

Regards

ACB

cet_0c_table_030108.doc

Excellent analysis AC, though reading numbers and trying to make sense of them reminds me how visual I am in communication preference.

My only quibbles are twofold: first up I agree that cold doesn't distinguish source - I was looking at my uni thesis recently and was reminded of a technique I used that I will eventually get around to reproducing on here that helps to overcome that issue, howver it would be a long build and might require a team of us to compile (volunteers most welcome by the way).

Secondly, I wouldn't use mean temp but would have used max - the results probably won't be markedly different but I did point out several times during one of the recent anticyclonic spells how large (unusually so for the time of year) sone of the diurnal ranges were. Also, an assessment of minima would give an intersting, though probably rather different, picture.

Your observation re context is very well made, though I would suggest that 1978-87 is actually a throwback to a previous time, and as much an anachronism (though far from absolutely exceptional) as 1998-2007 currently seems towards a future we are yet to reach. The decline since late in Queen Victoria's reign is plain to see.