The Whining Thread

[James M]

I couldn't find the old thread, but seeing as the moaning has started already I thought I'd open a new one. So for all those frustrated members out there, this is the place to let it all out

[Osbourne One-Nil]

What a good idea!

[Bottesford]

I just cycled home from a friends place & got caught out by the 'gate curfew' thing we have going on round here so had to take a mile detour. Only missed it by 1 minute! Whinge, whinge, whinge...

[Cookie]

In need of a decent winter storm!!!

a proper big one. 70 to 80 mph winds

[Bottesford]

What I'd really really love out of a winter spell is sub zero temps day & night but coupled with clear skies both day & night. Don't think I've ever experienced sub zero temps (maximums I mean) with the sun shining. Not fussed about snow etc - just want extreme dry cold.... Then maybe I could throw a bucket of water in the air and it'd freeze.. ok maybe getting a bit carried away there!

[Snowyowl9]

Don't think I've ever experienced sub zero temps (maximums I mean) with the sun shining. Not fussed about snow etc - just want extreme dry cold.... Then maybe I could throw a bucket of water in the air and it'd freeze.. ok maybe getting a bit carried away there!

December 1981/January/february 1985/January 1987 would give you your wish.

[butler_son]

I just cycled home from a friends place & got caught out by the 'gate curfew' thing we have going on round here so had to take a mile detour. Only missed it by 1 minute! Whinge, whinge, whinge...

Haha! I know the one you mean...there's a cut down onto Castle Boulevard if you're coming back though! I've been caught out by it too...

[reef]

What I'd really really love out of a winter spell is sub zero temps day & night but coupled with clear skies both day & night. Don't think I've ever experienced sub zero temps (maximums I mean) with the sun shining. Not fussed about snow etc - just want extreme dry cold.... Then maybe I could throw a bucket of water in the air and it'd freeze.. ok maybe getting a bit carried away there!

Unfortunately for this we need genuine cold air at 850hPa level over the UK - something thats been very rare in recent years. Much of the coldest weather in the last decade has been from inversion cold which is often foggy or cloudy and dull. You're talking -12C 850hPa air at least to give a chance of ice days in clear air this far south. Further north with the sun slightly weaker its possible with warmer uppers.

A potent cold spell in early January would help, though January has admittledly become a complete lemon in recent times.

[Weather-history]

What I'd really really love out of a winter spell is sub zero temps day & night but coupled with clear skies both day & night. Don't think I've ever experienced sub zero temps (maximums I mean) with the sun shining.

As recent as this year

[Thundery wintry showers]

What I'd really really love out of a winter spell is sub zero temps day & night but coupled with clear skies both day & night. Don't think I've ever experienced sub zero temps (maximums I mean) with the sun shining. Not fussed about snow etc - just want extreme dry cold.... Then maybe I could throw a bucket of water in the air and it'd freeze.. ok maybe getting a bit carried away there!

January 1963, away from eastern areas, regularly featured this pattern.

Neither Tyneside nor Norwich managed it this year but in Tyneside we had it, for example, on 27/28 December 1995, and 2 January 2002. 29th December 2005 only reached -1.2C during daylight hours despite a fair amount of sunshine.

[J10]

Unfortunately for this we need genuine cold air at 850hPa level over the UK - something thats been very rare in recent years. Much of the coldest weather in the last decade has been from inversion cold which is often foggy or cloudy and dull. You're talking -12C 850hPa air at least to give a chance of ice days in clear air this far south. Further north with the sun slightly weaker its possible with warmer uppers.

A potent cold spell in early January would help, though January has admittledly become a complete lemon in recent times.

Good to agree with this, I think it was the end of Jan /start of Feb 2006, when there were Upper air temps of +5c, but under the inversion, daytime temps were very close to zero.

[Methuselah]

I used to live in a frost-hollow...it could be +6 by Loch Ness and -6 seven miles up the glen...In winter, when the Sun shines on the hillside (Una Paloma Blanca!!! ), even a small inversion can deliver the goods...

[Bottesford]

Haha! I know the one you mean...there's a cut down onto Castle Boulevard if you're coming back though! I've been caught out by it too...

They're on about closing that one soon too! The whole thing annoys me - I live on the ruddy estate and I get locked out after 11 at night all cause the crinklies round here are scared of students!

Yes I think a deep cold pool in January would be the ticket but as we say - rare as hens teeth. I often struggle with sub zero at night in Jan never mind under sunny daytime skies! But then such is the urban heat island effect. Still maybe this year...

[Upgrade]

well, at least with all this mild weather, i havent needed to turn the central heating on yet this autumn!

[Methuselah]

A nice Merlot or Shiraz can be quite fun, especially with red meat, if it has a good nose...

Sorry, wrong thread!

[Ben_Cambs]

January 1963, away from eastern areas, regularly featured this pattern.

Neither Tyneside nor Norwich managed it this year but in Tyneside we had it, for example, on 27/28 December 1995, and 2 January 2002. 29th December 2005 only reached -1.2C during daylight hours despite a fair amount of sunshine.

And the 10th January this year, temperatures didnt go above -2C here and another station in East Anglia recorder a maximum of -3C

[Backtrack]

So sick of this random cloudcover that keeps drifting in from nowhere and making my temperature rise.

minus 1 here tonight? HAHA! dont make me laugh. Frost? HAHA dont make me laugh...

BBC, MetO, Charts.. ALL OF THEM WRONG!

IS ONE FROST TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!?! :wallbash:

[I remember Atlantic 252]

I feel this forum is very quiet? only 5 members on model discussion at 21.35 (run up to 18Z) and only 12 members on autumn discussion, thought there was normally 100+ on now that snow is possible, bad sign I feel with no cold spell due until at least December

[Eugene]

Yep no cold spell until at least december now it looks like maybe not until even January.

[Cecil Hogmanay Melchett]

Yep no cold spell until at least december now it looks like maybe not until even January.

Looking very mild next week,i suppose it will mean a saving on the heating bills!!!

~~(Hang on am i in the right thread)?

[damianslaw]

Have to say that this autumn in the main has been a rather trying affair when it has come to model watching, the weather seems to have been rather sluggish and most of the time very benign making for dull viewing.

We have had not one single shot of polar air from the north - very poor indeed, normally would have expected at least one shot by now, and often such a shot occurs sometime in the mid-late nov period, alas it is looking unlikely.

Autumn 2009 so far has been very uninspiring following an equally uninspiring summer and spring, if it hadn't been for the opening week of Jan and the first half of Feb this year I would say that 2009 as a whole so far has been an exceptionally dull one indeed with virtually nothing extreme and interesting having occured.

Ah feel better now I got that off my chest.

[Cloud 10]

:help:

[I remember Atlantic 252]

:help:

That chart isnt bad, should be dry (although FI) nothing worse than low pressure and rain, yeah that chart is mild but so is low pressure and rain

[Severe Blizzard]

Sorry, it's been a difficult day and I feel like a BIG moan tonight. I've managed to avoid this since June - honest!

Although Guildford finally got three thunder events in July; Tuesday 7th, Thursday 16th and Friday 24th; 2009 without doubt is the most boring and frustrating year for lack of thunder, which has only been heard on a total of 5 days and I missed one of those (Wednesday 2nd September). The other day was Wednesday 15th April.

Here are some facts;

(1) Thunder only heard on 5 days in 2009 and not much chance of increasing this, despite unsettled conditions and always the potential there, only to go somewhere else. Kent, London and even other parts of Surrey have had a 'normal' or even a 'good' year (15~20 days). This jinx has been with us in Guildford ALL year and it is like we have to pay for our outstanding snow event on February 2nd with a totally c**p year in every other way to follow. (Other areas that had very heavy snow in February have also had a good year for thunder too).

(2) Previous worst year for lack of thunder events was 1990 with only 7 days - at least we had a decent summer that year.

(3) Number of days of thunder in 2009 = April 2008 alone!

(4) I work outdoors so am more likely to 'pick up' thunder sounds and be aware of even distant storms - despite several violent cold fronts and Sunday's (22nd November) straight line wind severe squalls nothing was heard - only to get an Email from my friend in London to say he got yet more thunder. If Sunday's torrential rain and hail driven by 35 mph winds couldn't deliver - nothing will.

(5) Fed up with endless rain and wind, not in especially impressive amounts, which include Monday mornings - my day off and only chance in the week to go cycling in the countryside - only to clear by Noon leaving another windy and unpleasant damp scenario while the 'true S.E.' get all the thunder again. Both Monday 16th & 23rd had this scenario.

(I) Rain is welcome as it makes the weather more interesting even if it does make work more demanding but trivial quantities spoiling outdoor events are never welcome.

(II) I don't enjoy urban life and my countryside cycling is the ideal tonic to get away for a few hours from the hectic, overcrowded and stressful life of living in a large commuter and university town and having to deal with ignorant and rude people everyday. This just enhances this need for some peace. I ride very early in the morning to avoid the rush hour and roads clogged by chelsea tractors on the school run - darkness and cold is preferred to congestion - hence the moan about morning rain but dry afternoons. Riding later in the day when roads and bridleways are busier is not at all fun.

Maybe this post should be on the No Storms thread but thought I'd post here as it is a mixed whinge but has the main theme regarding the lack of thunderstorms. I will be doing more of these posts regarding the prospects of a return to a winter patten of S.W. mild dross after last year's wonderfully different winter. A mild zonal damp windy winter is not welcome after the crummy garbage endured through much of 2009 after the end of last winter - need to save this for after Christmas as there will be plenty of opportunity and time to grumble with the continued lack of thunderstorms and probably no snow or frosts either.

Anyway, apologies for the grumble but I'm really on one tonight after the c**p I've had to take at work today and missing out yet again. This is not helped having just seen the forecast for the usual parts of the S.E. to get the fun over the next few days while we are just tantalisingly too far west.....and it will probably be drizzle and light rain on Monday morning again.

[Thundery wintry showers]

The repeated northerly outbreaks of October and November last year (including some very potent ones- most widespread October snowfall since at least the early 1900s, biggest November snowfall in Norwich since at least 1993 and possibly for much longer, lowest November maxima since 1993 in some northern and western regions around the 29th/30th) were a bit much to expect a repeat of this autumn.

But this autumn has been exceptional for its lack of northerly outbreaks- even including the kind of "short fetch" northerlies that we had a lot of during the winter quarter of 2008/09. There have been no scenarios with cold air flowing over the warm North Sea giving vigorous convection over Norfolk except for a half-hearted incursion for a few hours late on the 11th October.

I still think that on balance Norwich has the most interesting climate in the UK, but I must say that these spells where conditions are finely balanced between "westerly" and "anticyclonic" with not much of note going on can get very boring in eastern England- and that goes for Norfolk as much as it goes for Tyne & Wear. Essentially you get the frontal rain, but then in between the rain belts, the shelter stops the showers getting across so convective precipitation ends up close to non-existent.