General Cold Spell Discussion

[Cheese Rice]

Rain arrived here and turned to heavy hail, current temperature 5.9.c

[Cheggers]

Have just arrived at the Out-Laws... and the drive from Granton on Spey over the Dava was interesting, will post a few pics later, but some 4-5 foot drifts on the side of the road were rather intimidating!!!

[damianslaw]

The snow you get on the 26th/27th would have made all the difference here. I was looking through my photos for the winter period yesterday and depsite the frozen waterfalls, rivers and lakes it isn't really that impressive in terms of snow. This winter has made me realise how rubbish it is for snow where I live. OK, I got a good dump at the end of February but if one of the coldest winters for 100 years only sees a total of 24 inches of snowfall...then I need to move to a location that gets proper snow.

Edit: -5C overnight which is pretty cold at any time of year

We had a very similiar story in terms of snowfall here in the Lake District. By far our snowiest spell occured between the 17th and 25th Dec, with 10 inches by the morning of the 21st. Thereafter we saw very small amounts of snow, we just missed out from the heavy snowfalls on the 5th that occured to our south, recieving only 3 inches. We then only saw a couple of cms from time to time at the end of january and early february. We were too far south to get any of the heavy snow at the end of Feb, just a couple of inches. Again we were too far south with the snowfal this week.

We were thus not well favoured in the main for catching any real heavy snowfall apart from on the 20th/21st. The Pennines blocked most of the heavy showers to the north east and neither did we benefit from the north westerlies in late jan which seem to penetrate into south lancashire area and miss Cumbria.

Still in terms of sustained cold it was quite severe in early january, and the highest tops in the main have been snow covered since mid dec with only temporary thaws, right now they are very much in winter condition.

[Ben_Cambs]

Yes same here; the snowiest spell was between the 17th-25th December. The NE'ly set up two streamers in EA and the SE, stretching into Central Southern England. Cambridge is in the perfect position for snow from a Wash streamer and that is exactly what happened, The blizzards on the night of the 17th into the 18th December gave 6-7 inches of snow, and temperatures for 4 days didnt reach above 0C. Two nights later bought a dusting and again that happened on the evening of the 21st, but the PPN had weakened too much to give anything significant, which parts of the Northern Home Counties and Central Southern England saw. By the 23rd less cold uppers had mixed into southern areas and on this evening that gave extremeley dangerous freezing rain, which on the Christmas eve lead to dangerous roads and paths, from which I myself fell off my bike. Most lying snow had melted by the end of Christmas Day, with a few patches by Boxing day.

The spell between Christmas and the New Year was quiet with slightly below average temperatures and mostly sunny. By New Years day, colder uppers had returned to all areas again, and unsually on the 2nd, I saw a period of heavy snow from a Cheshire gap streamer. I missed out on significant snowfall in January, the Channel low was too far south and west to affect me. A trough on the 6th though did give about 2 hours of snowfall, and delivered about an inch and a half of snow. For the days afterwards, EA was affected by snow showers and this topped up the covering around our area to around 2 and a half inches. Once again ice days returned, but a thaw set in by the 10th. The rest of January passed quietly and so did most of Feb.

I saw a dusting from the event around the 16th of Feb? A trough on the 21st gave a temporary covering, but a more marginal snow event occured the next morning giving around 2 and a half inches. That was the last snowfall of the winter and I suspect until December this year.

Overall a good winter with one decent snow event but nothing spectacular, the 12 day spell in Feb 09 was much much better for my location

Edited April 2, 2010 by Snowman0697

[Eugene]

Overall a good winter with one decent snow event but nothing spectacular,

Just good, give me a break, for alot of people it was spectacular or one of the worst depending on their point of view, the coldest winter since 1978/79 here and since 1962/63 in scotland and northern ireland makes it a pretty spectacular winter to me, NIMBY'ers should look at the overall picture

Indeed its still going on in scotland and northern ireland so the persistence of wintry weather is remarkable.

Edited April 2, 2010 by Eugene

[LomondSnowstorm]

Just good, give me a break, for alot of people it was spectacular or one of the worst depending on their point of view, the coldest winter since 1978/79 here and since 1962/63 in scotland and northern ireland makes it a pretty spectacular winter to me, NIMBY'ers should look at the overall picture

Indeed its still going on in scotland and northern ireland so the persistence of wintry weather is remarkable.

To be fair he was only talking about his location as were all our summaries, so a justifiably IMBY quote there from him

[geordiekev]

Our recent milder weather has led to the cold staying up north where it should be, Hence the Arctic Ice has returned to 1979-2000 figures for time of year. Suck on that Al Gore

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

[Guest]

Just good, give me a break, for alot of people it was spectacular or one of the worst depending on their point of view, the coldest winter since 1978/79 here and since 1962/63 in scotland and northern ireland makes it a pretty spectacular winter to me, NIMBY'ers should look at the overall picture

Indeed its still going on in scotland and northern ireland so the persistence of wintry weather is remarkable.

I don't think anyone denied the cold, it was a discussion about local snowfall we were having, hence the IMBYism

There is no denying that the winter past was severe in terms of extended cold weather. However there have been some more severe spells of winter weather experienced just none which were so extended. There has been deeper snowfall in other winters in some areas and far colder day to day temperatures. I for one would probably prefer to re-live the winter of 95/96 than the winter just passed. Also, I remember John Holmes scoffing at people comparing this winter to Jan & Feb 63. If you look at the stats he was quite right.

[Ben_Cambs]

Yes it was quite remarkable in terms of cold and the lack of mild, but in terms of snowfall for my location it was nothing historic. Of course this was a different story in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The lakes around here must of been frozen for the total of at least 10 days, which is quite remarkable for the lowest lying county in the country. But again, for Northern Ireland, if you discount the recent heavy snow this week, in terms of snowfall it was nothing spectacular there either. I really enjoyed this winter though, and when is the next time that this will happen?

[damianslaw]

I don't think anyone denied the cold, it was a discussion about local snowfall we were having, hence the IMBYism

There is no denying that the winter past was severe in terms of extended cold weather. However there have been some more severe spells of winter weather experienced just none which were so extended. There has been deeper snowfall in other winters in some areas and far colder day to day temperatures. I for one would probably prefer to re-live the winter of 95/96 than the winter just passed. Also, I remember John Holmes scoffing at people comparing this winter to Jan & Feb 63. If you look at the stats he was quite right.

Agree with you with regard to 95/96. Though it dodn't see such persistant cold as this year, it saw more potent cold in late december, and much heavier snowfall in early feb. It also started earlier than this winter and lasted longer with a notably cold March. Dec 95 was colder by some margin than dec 09. Had it not been for the mild first half of jan it would have been a very cold winter. Still, this winter just gone was exceptional for the length of sustained cold, Rydal and Grasmere were iced over from mid-late dec through to early March. The most dissapointing month for me this winter was Feb, thogh cold it never got especially cold and we saw very little snow - could have been much better.

[andy_leics22]

Cold spell? Mmmm could all be over now until November lol.

[BlueHedgehog074]

Yeah, I think I will have to accept the fact that it may not snow again until next Winter (in fact, it would be great to see it snow again in October like it did on 28th October 2008).

On the whole, it looks like getting a little warmer and hopefully drier for next week with lower rainfall amounts, which should be a nice change I guess.

[damianslaw]

Yeah, I think I will have to accept the fact that it may not snow again until next Winter (in fact, it would be great to see it snow again in October like it did on 28th October 2008).

On the whole, it looks like getting a little warmer and hopefully drier for next week with lower rainfall amounts, which should be a nice change I guess.

Agree the further into April we go the ever decreasing likelihood of wintry weather, but, it can still occur right up until the end of the month admittedly the odds are by then slim.

However, I wouldn't be too surprised to see a northerly develop by the middle of the month, the projected high due to move into scandanavia shows signs of ridging north and west setting up scandi trough development, the atlantic looks weak and on a very southerly track, don't write off the chances of more wintry weather just yet especially in the north. The met office seem to be hinting at a north westerly incursion mid month which would support my thinking.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Just a few pics from 31st March on the Galtees.

Some drifts of around 3 or 4ft in places.

Mountain Peak

Some nice ice and snow patterns

Plenty more pics here and a few videos here http://s976.photobucket.com/albums/ae242/Na-Damanta-Sam/Galtees%2031-3-10/

[NorthantsSnow]

Just had a heavy hail shower here, leaving a scattering of ice pellets on some surfaces.

[BlueHedgehog074]

Awwwww! Those group of hail and rain showers on the NetWeather radar are tiny (lol).

[Northernlights]

A few pictures taken on the 1st of April just a few miles inland from us showing the results of the snowstorm a few days earlier.

[frostyjoe]

A few pictures taken on the 1st of April just a few miles inland from us showing the results of the snowstorm a few days earlier.

hows the snow now??? is it melted.. all the snow on the other mountains is melting quick but for some reason my mountains snow is taking forever to melt... still about 3 foot up there but it is melting... there are patches of grass breaking through now..

[BlueHedgehog074]

Dude, yours and NaDamantaSam's pictures are awesome. Certainly quite a covering of snow, there, in those pictures.

But something about the third picture tells me that the snow is alive with the dark brown areas looking like eyes and the round whiter patch being a nose. (attached example underneath just in case).

[NorthantsSnow]

Sorry, forgot to add earlier- thank you for those excellent pictures. Really stunning some of them!

[Deep Snow please]

Agree with you with regard to 95/96. Though it dodn't see such persistant cold as this year, it saw more potent cold in late december, and much heavier snowfall in early feb. It also started earlier than this winter and lasted longer with a notably cold March. Dec 95 was colder by some margin than dec 09. Had it not been for the mild first half of jan it would have been a very cold winter. Still, this winter just gone was exceptional for the length of sustained cold, Rydal and Grasmere were iced over from mid-late dec through to early March. The most dissapointing month for me this winter was Feb, though cold it never got especially cold and we saw very little snow - could have been much better.

I'm afraid for me the opposite is true, early January saw the winters worst snowfall which means it was not mild.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Whereas December and January had potent cold spells interspersed with milder ones, February's cold was arrived at via homogeneity rather than any particularly potent cold spells. As a result, snowfalls were much more marginal in the case of February and tended not to lie for long at low levels. In addition, most of February's events were frontal over England and Wales, giving rise to slushy messes as rain, sleet and snow alternated on top of existing snow cover, accompanied by raw winds and overcast skies.

I think these factors will result in most snow lovers considering February a disappointment despite it being every bit as snowy as December and January as far as snow falling from the sky is concerned.

[Northernlights]

hows the snow now??? is it melted.. all the snow on the other mountains is melting quick but for some reason my mountains snow is taking forever to melt... still about 3 foot up there but it is melting... there are patches of grass breaking through now..

Can still see a lot of snow above 800 feet round about, heard a story yesterday about a farmer up in Glenlivet who spent a morning digging out his silage pit which was complete snowed in just to get to the silage to feed his stock. Silage face and walls were 18 feet high and the snow was another 3 feet over that. Quite a snowstorm for the last week in March and it had the ingredient that was missing from nearly all all the winter snowfalls namely very strong winds.

[❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️]

If we, the snow lovers of Netweather, could save up until next winter, look where we could get a house! http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/3982523/?image=0

[Eugene]

It was hilarious on good friday on QVC The Shopping Channel they were doing three gardening shows at the beginning they were wearing coats and saying its not too bad evne though it was freezing with overcast skies then it started to pour down and they had to spend the rest of the 3 shows during the day indoors looking embarassed