Wales Cymru Spring Weather Discussion Thread

[Stevetynant]

Pack the gritter away then ??

Well still a good two months to go yet so who knows - if your summer job is selling Ice creams theres still a way to go before the Mr Whippy van needs to come out for sure.

On the gritting front though - before Christmas didn't seem to see many out and about, although they must have been I guess, but now there seems to be so much rock salt on the roads near where I live I would be better going to work in a dune buggy than a car

[TonyH]

How is your new WS going Steve? Can you put it online as I do on Wunderground, that would be great.

I have been having a look at the WS2800 (yours?) and wondered how well you find the solar rain gauge and anemometer works?

Mine is La Crosse too so I guess yours would work with Wunderground.

[TonyH]

Some stats for my weather station for 2010:

Llanwnnen temps 2010.pdf

weather table 2010.pdf

Edited February 1, 2011 by Tonyh

[DeepSnow]

First day of feb and it felt quite mild at 10.8C! I was hoping not to see that sort of temperature until later in the month! Is winter likely to make a return?

[TonyH]

rainfall 2010 llanwnnen.pdf

ciliau- llanwnen rain 2003-2011.pdf

Edited February 1, 2011 by Tonyh

[Stevetynant]

How is your new WS going Steve? Can you put it online as I do on Wunderground, that would be great.

I have been having a look at the WS2800 (yours?) and wondered how well you find the solar rain gauge and anemometer works?

Mine is La Crosse too so I guess yours would work with Wunderground.

Hi Tony - so far so good - really pleased in fact as I'd read a few reviews after I'd bought it that made me question whether I should have or not but like I said so far so good. - the WS2800 holds up to 1700 data points I think so I haven't exported anything into excel just yet but that is my next thing to do when I get a couple of months worth of data sets together - at the moment I'm still using heavy weather Software which a lot of people don't like but I don't mind it at all. Its hard to say anything about the aenometer at the moment because we haven't really had any prolonged periods of wind where I live since Christmas which is quite odd really as I'm fairly elevated up here in the Valleys - be interesting when I do get some accumulated data together to see if I can spot patterns in the prevailing wind direction - but like I said nothing too exciting on that front to report as yet. - what La Crosse model do you use?- I hadn't thought of publishing the data to the web - I'll have to have a root around that website you mentioned and see whats possible.

Apologies if its gone a bit off topic but - like the weather at the moment it is fairly quiet in here - back on topic for a second - temperature briefly touched zero here tonight - went down to Caerphilly to do some shopping - when I came out of Asda- the fog was unbelievable- seemed to come from nowhere in the space of an hour - now back home and no sign of it at all.

[TonyH]

Hi Steve I have a La Crosse WS2300.

I use this program for uploading which is very good and you make a one off payment::

Weather Display

I could not see the WS2800 as one of the stations that is included though.

There is another one called Cumulus too.

I presume you are aware of the graphing capabilities of Heavy Weather, for your own use, and you could upload on here after saving to your PC? I like this little programme for making the graphs that I save to my laptop and also uploading onto here:

Graph Weather

It uses the Heavy Weather data file, while Weather Display has to be run while Heavy Weather is closed (I briefly close WD to update HW periodically once the memory is full).

Wunderground I use for putting online, and which is easy to do through Weather Display.

Edited February 1, 2011 by Tonyh

[J10]

Nice mix of weather today, wet to start and much brighter into the afternoon.

First day of feb and it felt quite mild at 10.8C! I was hoping not to see that sort of temperature until later in the month! Is winter likely to make a return?

IMO it is not looking promising, but never say never. Thursday seems some Polar Maritime air over us, with a chance of some wintriness in places more especially over hills the further north you go, but after this blip. There are no signs of any Northern blocking, which really is the main building block of wintry weather over the UK.

[TonyH]

There is this on the WD forum re WS2800 Steve:

WD forum

[TonyH]

Forgot to mention you can trial WD for one month before commiting which is what I did.

[J10]

Compiling my weather records, and just noticed that the max temp at Mumbles today was 11.5c, the warmest day since Mid November.

(must be consistent, after all I used this in January )

[welshgritter]

Nice mix of weather today, wet to start and much brighter into the afternoon.

IMO it is not looking promising, but never say never. Thursday seems some Polar Maritime air over us, with a chance of some wintriness in places more especially over hills the further north you go, but after this blip. There are no signs of any Northern blocking, which really is the main building block of wintry weather over the UK.

What's your thoughts on another cold spell in the second half of February?

[Stevetynant]

There is this on the WD forum re WS2800 Steve:

WD forum

Brilliant - thanks Tony - got plenty to work on now thats really helpful (not sure the wife will be so pleased as I already have a few projects on that mean I avoid painting the hallway - networking all my TVs and uploading loads of my DVDs and the most crtitical one- the 6 Nations which wipes out all my weekends for the next month or so.)

[J10]

What's your thoughts on another cold spell in the second half of February?

My guess is that snowy weather seems as far away as ever, however the chance of a settled cold and frosty spell is much higher.

But I am not ruling out any more snow this February, nor would I want to.

[welshgritter]

My guess is that snowy weather seems as far away as ever, however the chance of a settled cold and frosty spell is much higher.

But I am not ruling out any more snow this February, nor would I want to.

Settled Cold Frosty Spell will do for me ! If I can get another weeks work some way shape or form would be GREAT! With Winter officially ending on the 21st of March, there may be potential for 10 days! I am hoping for a cold 14 days in the second half of the month. Anything in March is a bonus.

[andymusic]

Settled Cold Frosty Spell will do for me ! If I can get another weeks work some way shape or form would be GREAT! With Winter officially ending on the 21st of March, there may be potential for 10 days! I am hoping for a cold 14 days in the second half of the month. Anything in March is a bonus.

Looks like you may get your wish from the GFS 06z - but we'll wait and see if this firms up on the next few model runs - chance of a mega easterly in the offing come the 2nd half of FEB!!!!!!!!!!

Joe B disagrees - and thinks we'll have to wait till next year for the cold to return

SPEAKING OF WARMING... I think we can all agree that January was nothing out of the ordinary as far as the return of the very cold that has been a mainstay in some ideas. Not this forecaster... and i continue to hold with the idea that no sustained cold is in site for GB and Ireland, and the worst of the winter, as opined back in December, was december, that there would be plenty of warming in the north to or above normal. I see no reason to back away from that now. I dont look for any major sustainable cold the next two weeks and probably beyond that for the month. As the Fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers used to say many years ago, wait until next year.

snow's not far away mind - scotland right now

Scotland's ski centres are getting a right battering and freshening up of their snow cover

edit:- winds are starting to get up in Wales now and the met office have heavy rain warnings for this evening and over night for certain parts of Wales - so a stormyish night to come

Edited February 3, 2011 by andymusic

[marclt]

i suppose you could call me a deserter! But I'm back for a while anyway (won't they be closing this board shortly?)

Anyway, just read a tweet from esteemed weather broadcaster Liam Dutton (he used to fill in for our Derek... )

He says: "Just been studying different weather models and there's the possibility of colder weather coming back in 10 days. I'll keep you updated!"

[keithlucky]

Looks like you may get your wish from the GFS 06z - but we'll wait and see if this firms up on the next few model runs - chance of a mega easterly in the offing come the 2nd half of FEB!!!!!!!!!!

Joe B disagrees - and thinks we'll have to wait till next year for the cold to return

SPEAKING OF WARMING... I think we can all agree that January was nothing out of the ordinary as far as the return of the very cold that has been a mainstay in some ideas. Not this forecaster... and i continue to hold with the idea that no sustained cold is in site for GB and Ireland, and the worst of the winter, as opined back in December, was december, that there would be plenty of warming in the north to or above normal. I see no reason to back away from that now. I dont look for any major sustainable cold the next two weeks and probably beyond that for the month. As the Fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers used to say many years ago, wait until next year.

snow's not far away mind - scotland right now

Scotland's ski centres are getting a right battering and freshening up of their snow cover

edit:- winds are starting to get up in Wales now and the met office have heavy rain warnings for this evening and over night for certain parts of Wales - so a stormyish night to come

Got to disagree there andy January was below average with many frosts recorded any many more to come a return to cold looks on from around the 10th of febuary,theres going to be a late spring this year .winters is going out with a bang,.

[J10]

According to the Climate UK website, Wales was 1.1c below average in January and 25% Sunnier (contrary to certain posters beliefs in the MOD threads, it was also drier than average.

http://www.climate-uk.com/page2.html

In terms of the rainfall, I suspect this is subject to extreme regional variations, my guess is that SW areas were wetter than average, mainly due to the one extremely wet week, while the rest of the month was mostly dry.

will be interesting to the the Welsh average when they come out on the Meto website over the next few days.

[keithlucky]

Looks like you may get your wish from the GFS 06z - but we'll wait and see if this firms up on the next few model runs - chance of a mega easterly in the offing come the 2nd half of FEB!!!!!!!!!!

Joe B disagrees - and thinks we'll have to wait till next year for the cold to return

SPEAKING OF WARMING... I think we can all agree that January was nothing out of the ordinary as far as the return of the very cold that has been a mainstay in some ideas. Not this forecaster... and i continue to hold with the idea that no sustained cold is in site for GB and Ireland, and the worst of the winter, as opined back in December, was december, that there would be plenty of warming in the north to or above normal. I see no reason to back away from that now. I dont look for any major sustainable cold the next two weeks and probably beyond that for the month. As the Fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers used to say many years ago, wait until next year.

snow's not far away mind - scotland right now

Scotland's ski centres are getting a right battering and freshening up of their snow cover

edit:- winds are starting to get up in Wales now and the met office have heavy rain warnings for this evening and over night for certain parts of Wales - so a stormyish night to come

Different weather sites are starting to swing to cold end to winter now positive weather are one and this one which has pretty good so far this winter, WSI - Weather Services International say Milder Mid-Winter Period, But More Extreme Cold Likely Late. We expect a return to more severe and widespread below-normal temperatures across much of Europe, lasting well into spring. At some point later in February or early March, we do expect a return to more strongly negative NAO conditions as the La Nina event weakens and tropical Pacific convection begins to play a bigger role.†The biggest uncertainty for the February forecast is that the strong negative NAO pattern will return more quickly than we currently expect. We are monitoring these developments daily going forward, and will be sending out alerts if we see any signs of the colder negative NAO pattern re-emerging†Dr. Crawford added.

[benb]

According to the Climate UK website, Wales was 1.1c below average in January and 25% Sunnier (contrary to certain posters beliefs in the MOD threads, it was also drier than average.

http://www.climate-uk.com/page2.html

In terms of the rainfall, I suspect this is subject to extreme regional variations, my guess is that SW areas were wetter than average, mainly due to the one extremely wet week, while the rest of the month was mostly dry.

will be interesting to the the Welsh average when they come out on the Meto website over the next few days.

It was a shame that most of the precipitation fell in what was probably the only above average week!

The warmth of the last couple of days, and especially the sunshine on Tuesday afternoon (I think it was), has brought about some spring growth in Pembs: there's just the first signs of fresh green in the hedgerows near Carew and white blossom buds appearing on some of the roadside trees near Llanteg. Could be in for a shock if some of the potentially very cold model output from today actually happens...

http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Is that a 90mph gust in Aberdaron?

Edited February 3, 2011 by benb

[andymusic]

Got to disagree there andy January was below average with many frosts recorded any many more to come a return to cold looks on from around the 10th of febuary,theres going to be a late spring this year .winters is going out with a bang,.

Sorry Kieth - that was mean't to be a quote from Joe B (not my words) - He was contrasting the cold we had before xmas to the cold in january - otherwise he was saying that he can't see any cold coming to the UK in the next two weeks or to the end of this month - unlike what we are currently seeing at the moment in the models with a slight chance of a potent easterly - so we'll soon see who is right!

January was a cold month due to frosts - I'd agree with that

Is that a 90mph gust in Aberdaron?

yes it certainly looks like it - and it's very windy here right now

Edited February 3, 2011 by andymusic

[TonyH]

In terms of the rainfall, I suspect this is subject to extreme regional variations, my guess is that SW areas were wetter than average, mainly due to the one extremely wet week, while the rest of the month was mostly dry.

will be interesting to the the Welsh average when they come out on the Meto website over the next few days.

Correct. Here January was slightly wetter than normal, with virtually all in the first half of the month.

Regarding January, it was certainly a cold one in Wales (as in Ireland), and yes this was largely due to the frequent and often severe frosts, of the second half. My mean minimum was just below zero. Had this January occurred between the late 1980's and early 00's it would have been perceived as much colder than it in fact has. Following on from last years very cold Winter and the exceptional cold of late November and December it felt very average. Shows how soon we acclimatise to very cold conditions.

[J10]

Very windy outside now, living on top of a hill exposed to the Bay means we get some very strong gusts. In the past, the winds have been so strong, I was wondering whether the windows were going to blow in.

All sites in Wales have had gusts over 40mph in the last hour, that is unusual and as mentioned previous there have been gusts of up to 90mph in Aberdaron.

[TonyH]

Got to disagree there andy January was below average with many frosts recorded any many more to come a return to cold looks on from around the 10th of febuary,theres going to be a late spring this year .winters is going out with a bang,.

Hmm possible but far from certain. ECM promises cold easterlies from later next week as you say Keith, but GFS not having it.

Wind strong but nothing special yet here, gusts getting to around gale force though.