White Christmas 2009

[MP-R]

Obviously down here in the southwest our snow is pretty limited, sometimes to only one fall per season without settling. However, in December 2004, without checking my records I think it was about the 18th, it hammered down all afternoon and into the night and I thought the following day was going to more of the same. On the 19th we woke up to 4cm of snow and light snow falling. A total surprise! I'm not sure what the synoptic setup for that was but something like that would be ideal - unforecasted and completely unexpected.

[Backtrack]

Obviously down here in the southwest our snow is pretty limited, sometimes to only one fall per season without settling. However, in December 2004, without checking my records I think it was about the 18th, it hammered down all afternoon and into the night and I thought the following day was going to more of the same. On the 19th we woke up to 4cm of snow and light snow falling. A total surprise! I'm not sure what the synoptic setup for that was but something like that would be ideal - unforecasted and completely unexpected.

It was like that here near easter last year. I watched the heavy rain turn to heavy snow in the blink of an eye that night. It was the best thing i've ever seen!

[Derp Patrol]

Not sure I see the link between today and Christmas day, unless the rest of us are missing something?

I said 'at this rate' suggesting that if this weather continues..

Of course today's weather has no link with the weather on Xmas day, but the long term outlook is mild and wet..I don't think that there will be a pattern change untill maybe the 2nd week of December, by which time it may be too late.

[Stuart]

Hope we see a upgread 2night forecast on net weather

[stewfox]

I said 'at this rate' suggesting that if this weather continues..

Of course today's weather has no link with the weather on Xmas day, but the long term outlook is mild and wet..I don't think that there will be a pattern change untill maybe the 2nd week of December, by which time it may be too late.

Why, christmas is still on the 25th ?

[Coast]

I see the latest Sainsbury's 'Christmas Fayre' TV commercial with Jamie Oliver has snow falling everywhere - are they privy to information we don't have???

If anything can be influenced for Christmas this year, surely we should get hold of Simon Cowell - he's running it all now

[cheshire snow]

Please can someone answer me a question?

On the TV adverts how come there is always Snow falling from Moon lit skys

It is so enoying Sorry please feel free to move this if not appropriate

C.S

[Methuselah]

Can't answer that, CS...But it's bloody irritating!!!

[cyclonic happiness]

I see the latest Sainsbury's 'Christmas Fayre' TV commercial with Jamie Oliver has snow falling everywhere - are they privy to information we don't have???

If anything can be influenced for Christmas this year, surely we should get hold of Simon Cowell - he's running it all now

that can't be simon cowel's house!!!! it's way too small..........here's his house

Please can someone answer me a question?

On the TV adverts how come there is always Snow falling from Moon lit skys

It is so enoying Sorry please feel free to move this if not appropriate

C.S

That advert with jamie oliver in it, it's not snow falling, it's all that spitting he does going up into the air and freezing, that's why you can see a full moon and snow together........i wouldn't eat any mind!!

[Methuselah]

Pucka!!!

[noggin]

I like the Waitrose advert.......the one with the homecomings and the beautiful singing.

[Coast]

White Christmas 2009 Betting Odds are already proving popular, more than six weeks before the big day. Paddy Power are offering odds on which cities will experience a White Christmas this year and they also have other specials including the River Thames to freeze over and people to be ice skating on it on Christmas Day!

London More Likely To Have Snow On Christmas Day Than Manchester

The most likely city on the Paddy Power list to have a White Christmas in 2009 is Chicago, it is even money with Paddy Power whilst fellow American city Boston is 11/10 with Paddy Power. New York is 13/8 with Paddy Power, Glasgow is 3/1 with Paddy Power, Belfast is 7/2 and if you live near London you will want to know that the odds on a White Christmas there is 4/1 with Paddy Power.

Record Temperatures Unlikely But Big Ben Could Stop Working

The chances of record temperatures seems unlikely, Paddy Power offer 25/1 that the record for lowest Christmas temperature in Scotland (-27.2C) is beaten and also 25/1 on the record for the highest Christmas temperature in England (15.6C) is beaten. Paddy Power go 66/1 that Big Ben stops working due to frost and 150/1 that the River Thames freezes over and people ice skate on it on Christmas Day.

www.online-betting-guide.co.uk/White Christmas 2009

While the last official white Christmas was in 2004, bookmakers have reported a flurry of bets on there being snowfall this festive season. One online site is offering odds of 6/1 of snowfall in Manchester. Matt Fisher, duty manager of Huddersfield bookmakers Jack Pearson, said customers were yet to take a punt on snow falling on Christmas Day.

www.examiner.co.uk

How the Chinese always make it a White Christmas

While the rest of us were going about our usual small scale climate change recycling business this week — depositing a couple of pasta jars in the bottle bank, knitting a jumper from plastic bags, watering the begonias with used bathwater — China threw caution to the wind and struck a truly thunderous blow against global warming. Not in the way they do in Hollywood movies with artificial snow machines.

In the Beijing metropolitan area they elbowed Mother Nature aside entirely and made it snow real snow. The impressively named Beijing Weather Modification Office (surely we should have a branch in Northern Ireland?) did this by firing chemicals into the clouds causing precipitation which, aided by sub zero temperatures, then fell as snow.

The scientists had been called in to end a lengthy drought which had been causing major problems in the region. But this was not their first cloud “seeding” outing. They’d also been at their work in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. What is interesting about all this is that these Chinese scientists messing around with “weather modification” appear to attract less censure from the global warming fraternity than a pizza box in the wrong recycling receptacle.

If it is eco acceptable to make it snow in Beijing, how come Bono et al don’t arrange for a truck load of this cloud seeding stuff to be diverted to that beleaguered polar bear we’re always hearing about in the Arctic? And another question which didn’t make it into those reports majoring on the winter wonderland cutesiness of it all? How safe is this cloud tinkering process anyway?

What goes up must come down — not just in the standard water, cloud, precipitation cycle with which we’re all familiar. But presumably also in terms of what the Chinese are now shooting into the stratosphere. That isn’t just snow falling on Beijing. It’s chemical-laced snow. A sharp wind from the East and it could be headed our way too. It is climate rearranging on a momentous scale and it fairly puts into perspective all that sorting the cardboard from the paper and making sure a squashed up Coke bottle doesn’t go in with the household waste.

On one side of the world we’re obsessing about how poor bin management may contribute to unstable weather. On they other side they’re nuking the heavens when they feel the need of a wet weekend.

The whole crux of global warming strategy is surely the global bit. We’re all supposed to be in this together. How long before other nations envious of Chinese made-to-measure snowfalls get out their own weather modification kits and let rip into the atmosphere too? (Are they doing it already?) On a local individual level we’re constantly being warned that leaving the laptop on standby is environmentally reckless and if the British Isles end up as one big duck pond it will be entirely our fault.

Yet on a global scale nobody seems to be batting an eyelid at nations customising the world’s weather patterns to their own requirements. How many Chinese scientists does it take to change an eco friendly bulb?

None. They just blast away the cloud cover and let the sun shine in.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

[Paul]

Christmas forecast updated - increased chance of snow

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=other;type=xmas;sess=

[Mondy]

http://ukasf.co.uk/module-Christmas/mode-forecast/id-55/

[fear sneachta]

Might not be a white Christmas after all, at least not for Ireland if this New Zealander is right!

http://www.independe...09-1886289.html

Edited November 17, 2009 by fear sneachta

[osmposm]

Well, that's encouraging. If Ken Ring reckons it'll be mild, then we're in with a chance of a cold snap.

[fear sneachta]

Well, that's encouraging. If Ken Ring reckons it'll be mild, then we're in with a chance of a cold snap.

How so? He's actually remarkably and scarily quite accurate and has been so in the past.

[Stuart]

I just read net weather xmas forcast from monday I am Happy so I going to have a

[osmposm]

How so? He's actually remarkably and scarily quite accurate and has been so in the past.

Well, not in my book, I'm afraid - and not in any sort of statistically significant way. His occasional "hits" are trumpeted for general applause, while his rather more frequent "misses" are quietly overlooked. 'Quite accurate' is a good phrase, actually, because his forecasts are often vaguely described and his method effectively allows a week's leeway, so they are often difficult to pin down as good or bad. For a flexible date sometime in the last week of December 2005, for example, he forecast "rain-and-snow" somewhere in the UK. Well, that's a pretty good bet most years. In fact it was unusually cold and even snowy here in the south, and this was claimed as a successful prediction. The previous month, Nov 2005, we had an exceptionally cold spell late in the month, with frost & snow again. Ken had predicted "some sleet in N areas at first". Again this was claimed as a "hit". I'm not convinced.

His credibility is further undermined by some bizarre notions he holds that are demonstrably wrong - he maintains that the very word "meteorology" derives from the word "astrology" (his method is based mainly [?wholly] on the influence of the moon, I believe). Even when its precise Greek meaning was explained to him he wouldn't budge - the 'ancients', he claimed, knew it was all to do with the heavens, and that's why they called it "meteor-astrology". He also continues to state on his website http://www.predictweather.co.nz that the winters of the 1930s in the UK were so mild that "builders in Britain began putting pipes on the outside of buildings because frosts were only a memory". Have a look at the daily CET mean records here http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetdl1772on.dat if you believe that - Ken does (and anyone who's ever done any plumbing on an old house here knows it's nonsense anyway). Read through some of what he's written (go to 'articles' on his website), and then see what you think about the man and his level of knowledge about weather and climate.

In long discussions with him and about him on here in 2005 & 2006 he left many of us less than impressed: I don't know if the threads are still accessible. Anyone know?

P.S. We probably shouldn't discuss him and his methods any more in this thread, it's too far off-topic. Perhaps better in the media forecasts area.

Edit: just found one thread here , but I think it may be the only one that survives. Plenty of forecast there for 2006-7, several of them, to be fair, pretty precise - including an extraordinary prediction for snowfall between 15th and 20th June 2007 on higher ground. If you'd care to investigate how they turned out, FS, and report back - and they turn out to have been 'remarkably and scarily quite accurate' - then I will happily and humbly change my mind.

Edited November 18, 2009 by osmposm

[Roger J Smith]

Now that Fred and I have issued our LRF, I can mention that our forecast is somewhat optimistic for a white Christmas in the UK, the week before the 25th looks increasingly cold and easterly for circulation in our research model. Would suggest some optimism for a white Christmas although not everywhere and not necessarily very much snow.

Ken's as good as anyone else at this dodgy business, in my estimation. I don't agree with every concept of his, but we have some overlapping research too (I've been chatting with him on another forum recently). I think a lot of people go into this field and think they have to make absolute statements of 100% accuracy in order to be taken seriously, and of course, the problem is, this is true to some extent, you can gain a following by making such claims then plowing into the task and ignoring all criticism.

I've never wanted to do that and it makes no sense to me. All we can really do is chip away at a very difficult scientific (and intellectual) challenge in this field of making long-range forecasts, and any progress at all is gratifying.

This thread will no doubt demonstrate that principle and all you can really expect from this is to get a sense of the state of "consensus" about any trends or unusual signals at all time scales until we're finally dealing with "reliable data." From this distance out, all I would want to say is that index values from research favour cold air and easterly circulation, but not a particularly stormy set-up (although a secondary energy peak falls on the 24th which may be helpful).

I hope you do have a white Christmas, they are not exactly thick on the ground over there.

[MAF]

Thanks Roger, once again the run up to Xmas gives diverse forecasts from opposing corners. i realise there is a lot of work put into many peoples LRF's and respect the research and effort that people put into trying to forecast a month ahead. it is just a shame that the science of forecasting cannot be pinned down as the fluctuations, variations, anomalies etc, etc, make it impossible to accurately tell what will happen in 4 weeks time. as for a white Xmas, well i shall carry on as i have before, waiting in hope but not expecting anything other than a usual mild/average december day in London :lol:

[*Stormforce~beka*]

Any white Christmas discussion based on facts shouldn't begin until early December at the very earliest :unsure:

Very much agree!!! I am suprised I have held out of coming into this thread so long. But today just could not resist. Although I don't normally venture into here until 1st Decemeber out of principle. What is happening to me! lol.

I predict 12c and wet and windy or at the very least ... just boring cloud and cold. Deffo no snow for Southern England!

[MAF]

Very much agree!!! I am suprised I have held out of coming into this thread so long. But today just could not resist. Although I don't normally venture into here until 1st Decemeber out of principle. What is happening to me! lol.

I predict 12c and wet and windy or at the very least ... just boring cloud and cold. Deffo no snow for Southern England!

brave call Beka :unsure:

i hope (in the nicest way) you are wrong though

[osmposm]

Ken's as good as anyone else at this dodgy business, in my estimation. I don't agree with every concept of his, but we have some overlapping research too (I've been chatting with him on another forum recently). I think a lot of people go into this field and think they have to make absolute statements of 100% accuracy in order to be taken seriously, and of course, the problem is, this is true to some extent, you can gain a following by making such claims then plowing into the task and ignoring all criticism.

I rather agree with all that, Roger - even perhaps that he is good (or bad) as anyone else. The problem for me (as with Piers Corbyn) is that he claims - repeatedly, arrogantly and often angrily - to be so much better. And (again like Corbyn) that his assessment of a "succcessful" outcome is absurdly flexible and generous where his own forecasts are concerned.

Edited November 18, 2009 by osmposm

[Methuselah]

I still recall one of Ring's 2006 prognostications...Even though (on looking-out of my own window) there was not a cloud in the sky, Mr R informed me that (due to some ridiculous lunar something) it was, in actual fact, raining...

So, as with all these pseudo-scientific claims for clairvoyance, I remain 100% sceptical...Which probably means that (unlike AGW sceptics) I have a closed mind??

PS: And, neither will I forget his sock-puppet - the one with the 'big fists'...Although, luckily for me, his arms are a tad less than 17,000 miles long!