your winter summary

[jy]

Just an interest countrywide as to anything memorable in the last winter,for example here in Hampshire it was a poor winter for snow but we have had 57 frosts Ialso saw the biggest snowflakes of my entire life this winter finished off with the recent Sunday morning winter wonderland just interested as to how others have fared.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Winter summary for the two locations I live in:

Cleadon: A bit of a non-event really, a December finely balanced between mild unsettled and cold settled weather, then only fleeting snow events from the 3 January easterly and 1 February northerly. Although, February was pretty good sunshine wise.

Norwich: Similar snow-wise, nothing in December or January, but some decent snow late on the 1st February. February was astonishing for its sunshine, especially 8th-20th, with roughly twice the average.

However, like 1994/95, 1997/98 and 2005/06, a winter quarter without much snow has been followed by a spring with frequent wintry events. The Easter northerly in March delivered snow showers and temporary dustings for Cleadon but a fair covering in Norwich (shame I was away at the time), while the April one delivered snow cover to both locations, Cleadon having a two-inch cover early on the 7th which stuck around until lunchtime, probably the deepest in April since the 1980s.

[Cookie]

It was very cold compared to the other winters I have spent on the isle of lewis, we had more snow then in all last 3 winters put together!

wind wise most of the weather systems tracked much further south. leaving on to occasions with us not even going over the 100 mph mark.

december the 23 hard winds of 95 mph which was the windiest storm of the year,

[La Bise]

December, after a very mild start turned out to be pretty nice, with my favourite winter weather, cold and sunny days with ice and frost galore. January was awful aside from a very short interlude at the start. February was like December only with an incredibly mild week during the day but with bone chilling nights. March, which I consider a winter month, was quite alright, some interesting and varied weather.

All in all, in the context of the UK, a pretty decent winter, at least I had a fair few cold and frosty nights and my winter wardrobe was used fully!

[Eugene]

Yes La Bise it wasn't too bad at all really with some nice cold settled spells with cold nights, even mild winters can feel cold just like a cool summer can feel warm, just the lack of snow was disappointing though early spring kind of made up for it.

Looking forward to next winter already, mild doesn't bother me as even mild winters can have some cold spells.

Yes January was awful i would agree, Jan i feel is now the most disappointing winter month, the atlantic is just too active and i can't see it changing anytime soon.

I feel early spring is now much better for wintry weather than January.

[North-Easterly Blast]

Yes La Bise it wasn't too bad at all really with some nice cold settled spells with cold nights, even mild winters can feel cold just like a cool summer can feel warm, just the lack of snow was disappointing though early spring kind of made up for it.

Looking forward to next winter already, mild doesn't bother me as even mild winters can have some cold spells.

Yes January was awful i would agree, Jan i feel is now the most disappointing winter month, the atlantic is just too active and i can't see it changing anytime soon.

I feel early spring is now much better for wintry weather than January.

Re the Atlantic being too active in January for cold weather - an active Atlantic gave us cold and snow in January 1984.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840115.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840116.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840124.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840126.gif

This is the main aspect of the British Weather that is just the pits now at least in may book. I spend winter after winter especially during January whenever a zonal pattern sets in looking for a cold zonal pattern similar to January 1984 that is just totally elusive and never happens. It is just so depressing that we just get mild zonality now and that we never see the likes of January 1984 - it is only the wrong orientation of the zonal flow that keeps us mild.

[SteveB]

Well we had a lot of frosts, mostly in Autumn and Spring. Winter on the whole was poor for this area. A few snow showers. We had no snow settle over the whole period.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

December was pretty decent with a Denmark HP bringing in some pretty chilly air from the continent and lasted for a good 2 weeks. January, its bad enough suffering from Christmas Blues let alone see some of the coldest air in many a year slip away from us...awful month. Feb again overall poor but some decent mix chucked in there. Like Richard I'll count March and a very wintry month relatively speaking. Dec I liked but the more recent memory of Jan and 87esque set up that just missed us killed the winter off for me.

BFTP

[The PIT]

Poor

[LadyPakal]

It was the active Atlantic that gave so much snow to the western highlands. Hence the excellent skiing that was had by many this weekend, under blue skies and warm sun.

[Lettucing Gutted]

Re the Atlantic being too active in January for cold weather - an active Atlantic gave us cold and snow in January 1984.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840115.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840116.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840124.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119840126.gif

This is the main aspect of the British Weather that is just the pits now at least in may book. I spend winter after winter especially during January whenever a zonal pattern sets in looking for a cold zonal pattern similar to January 1984 that is just totally elusive and never happens. It is just so depressing that we just get mild zonality now and that we never see the likes of January 1984 - it is only the wrong orientation of the zonal flow that keeps us mild.

Another great thing about January 1984 and of course other very snowy months is the very cold adiabatically cooled air at 500HPA over the UK on those charts. This cold 500HPA air is useful in destabilizing the low level cool Maritime Polar airmass allowing for very heavy snow events. This feature of mid level 500HPA cold has been lacking in many of our recent cold spells.

[SP1986]

I thought locally it was the most frosty winter I have ever seen, there were numerous frosts (around 10) this winter and normally we may only get 3 or 4 at most.

Also the lowest temperature recorded for a while, at -4.1°C

Overall a relatively cold winter for my location, much colder than anything in the past 5 years

[stewfox]

I thought locally it was the most frosty winter I have ever seen, there were numerous frosts (around 10) this winter and normally we may only get 3 or 4 at most.

Also the lowest temperature recorded for a while, at -4.1°C

Overall a relatively cold winter for my location, much colder than anything in the past 5 years

Lots more frosts then recent years , particulary Dec ,March even April. I had to 'scrape the car' 35 times ??

Late November we had settle snow (lasted 18hrs) and some snow in late March/April

If Jan and Feb had got there act together it would have been better (snow/cold wise)

The day night time temps in Feb were interesting

We really do need a March/April set up in Jan/feb next year. Only 54 days and the sun heads south again :lol:

Edited April 28, 2008 by stewfox

[TEITS]

Dreadful with the same old problems causing the mild temps and lack of snow.

I feel you only have to read some members posts during the winter to see how poor our winters have become. When we have an anticyclonic period bringing cold, frosty conditions i.e Dec, some members seem contented with this. For me personally these kind of conditions would be seen during the months of Oct, Nov during my childhood days and would be seen as a pre-cursor to winter arriving.

I suppose alot depends on your age and experiences of winter. For example someone who had experienced the winters of the 60, 70, 80s will notice how much our winters have changed compared to our younger members who were born in the 80's/90's. I remember back in my ice hockey days how in winter we used to sometimes hold trainning in the fens as the frozen flooded fields used to be a regular occurance. Nowadays this no longer happens as the website below shows.

http://www.welney.org.uk/index.htm

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I've no idea about snowfall (we had our fair share though) but I did record 54 separate air-frosts. I'll check later to see how many I normally have (I think I normally have more).

[damianslaw]

In terms of snowfall it was preety poor redeemed only by the Easter and early April snowfalls (which admittedly fell during spring), so in this respect it sits alongside last year as a very poor year for snowfall. The only place that seems to have had a good year snowfall wise is Cairngorm.

In terms of frost much better than last year, but much less severe than in 2005/2006. Most frost dissapeared in the sunshine quite quickly especially in february.

Apart from the run up to christmas and the mid february high pressure spell, the rest of the winter was preety dire for proper wintry scenes.

Hoping next year delivers much more promise, with January becoming a winter month again, the one month when i expect cold snowy conditions it has continuously let us down year after year after year ...

[MAF]

well as a season on whole it was not a bad winter (imo) had a good few frosts and as BFTP remarks there was a decent cold spell in December. the main event had to be the April Snow which just about made the season finish on a good note.

and of course there were some decent foggy days too this winter. so in comparison to a few of the atrocious winters (atrocious as in mild and dull) this one has to be given a silver star

[cheeky_monkey]

non eventful... pretty much like most of the winters of the last 10-12 years. No snow some frost..any way this was my last winter in the uk..this winter at least im guaranteed cold and snow!

[shuggee]

From a cold perspective for me, it was the return of westerly zonal conditions that brought snow. Early January in particular, with coverings over 100m here for several days and that constant possibility of another snow event on the horizon. The number of air frosts was impressive as well. Pretty average overall for the last twenty years or so!

[reef]

Its almost impossible to describe how appauling it was, but ill give some examples and try anyway:

- No frosts in January for the first time ever and an average min of 4.7C (April average is 4.4C), as well as just 2 in December.

- Just 1 day of lying snow which was a thin covering in January which melted by 11am. Snow fell on just 3 days.

- Rainfall was 170% of average and only 12 days had maxima below 5C.

- January was the 2nd mildest on record, just 0.1C behind 2007!

- Winter as whole was the 5th mildest in the last 25 years, at 5.9C (1.4C above average).

So thats two crap ones in a row. Can 2008/09 possibly be worse?

[Mammatus]

One of the worst for cold and snow in SW Suffolk. Had to wait until April for our first snowflake. It was generally mild, especially January and at times during February.

Will go down as one of Suffolk's worst Winter's on par with Winter 2006/07- (Yes that long ago) Are we going to see a good Winter again down south?

Mammatus

Edited April 28, 2008 by Mammatus

[shuggee]

Its almost impossible to describe how appauling it was, but ill give some examples and try anyway:

So thats two crap ones in a row. Can 2008/09 possibly be worse?

Yes Reef - I know we've commented before on the fact that the UK really was divided around the far north of England: cold to the north and modern winter business as usual in most of the rest of England. And only a 2 1/2 hour train journey away!

I think that observation will be worth recording

[Northernlights]

Yes Reef - I know we've commented before on the fact that the UK really was divided around the far north of England: cold to the north and even larger teapot business as usual in most of the rest of England. And only a 2 1/2 hour train journey away!

I think that observation will be worth recording

I concur with this as there was constant snow cover above 2000 feet from November onwards on the hills around the Firth and we had more frosts up till a week ago (mostly slight except for just before Christmas when we got down to -10c) than for many years. This has led to a very late spring with crop sowing still going on and hardly any potatoes planted and the latest turnout for the cattle to the grass since the 1970"s on this farm.( Grass and crops have only really started to grow in the last week) The only thing that was missing was a period of any sustained snow cover from sea level up to 600 feet above sea level which I think possibly had something to do with sea temperatures. Nearly an old fashioned 60"s winter.

[Storm Animal]

Winter 07/08 in this part of the world was quite slow to get started, but had nice long cold frosty spell before Xmas, and the first snowfall at the end of January and then lasted til mid April...main snow dates & depths below:

26/01/08 - >5cm

04/03/08 - >5cm

23/03/08 - 10-15cm

06/04/08 - <5cm

08/04/08 - 10-15cm

17/04/08 - <5cm

Well lets hope we have a nice summer now.........

[Iceni]

One of the worst for cold and snow in SW Suffolk. Had to wait until April for our first snowflake. It was generally mild, especially January and at times during February.

Will go down as one of Suffolk's worst Winter's on par with Winter 2006/07- (Yes that long ago) Are we going to see a good Winter again down south?

Mammatus

I concur although that Easter morning's snow almost made up for the dire period from Christmas Eve to the end of January.

Does this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7376301.stm mean we might have our proper winters back for a few years?