Cold Spell - General Discussion

[jean91]

I want severe frosts.. but there is just too much darn cloud... what kind of cold spell is this? One of those easterlies that everyone in eastern England dreads.. cloudy, cloudy and no cold night temperatures.. is it thunderstorm season yet!?

Well Aaron been dull here and cloudy ( clouds we are not to see for a few days here!!!!!) all day with a top temp at 1.1c for Orly airport , the wind is slowly starting to pick up and from 7 pm local time to now 7 44 pm the sky almost completely cleared itself!!!!! and temp dropping much faster than yesterday.So tonight is the start of cold wave proper here in Paris.

Locally temps could go below -8c in less urban suburbs.It is just a start!!!!!!!

4 nights forecasted where i could reach or nearing -10c!!!!!

Ps: also till sunday no temps above -2c for Paris and all suburbs!!!!!!!

Edited January 31, 2012 by jean91

[damianslaw]

Had we the snow cover temps at the moment would be much lower than they are. This cold spell so far is a relatively average type of cold spell and I suspect it will go down as another one of those 'so near yet so far easterly events that failed to deliver'. Greenland highs are much more likely to guarantee deep cold and snowy action - easterlies have to be perfectly positioned and it is much harder to get the optimum sustained cold snowy easterly set up as we saw in Jan 87 and Feb 91 - these are rare beasts.

[sundog]

Had we the snow cover temps at the moment would be much lower than they are. This cold spell so far is a relatively average type of cold spell and I suspect it will go down as another one of those 'so near yet so far easterly events that failed to deliver'. Greenland highs are much more likely to guarantee deep cold and snowy action - easterlies have to be perfectly positioned and it is much harder to get the optimum sustained cold snowy easterly set up as we saw in Jan 87 and Feb 91 - these are rare beasts.

Gimmie a greenland high anyday over this. Easterlies often promise so much and in the end deliver nothing too special . As you say with easterlies everything has to be positioned just right all the pieces of the jigsaw have to be in place for a special cold spell when it comes to easterlies for the BI anyway .More often then not they arent. With greenland highs things are generally more favourable for special cold spells and with them there is less of the "will the cold come or will it not",will it,wont it. Things are usually more clear cut when it comes to greenland highs.

[greybing]

I want severe frosts.. but there is just too much darn cloud... what kind of cold spell is this? One of those easterlies that everyone in eastern England dreads.. cloudy, cloudy and no cold night temperatures.. is it thunderstorm season yet!?

Hey man ,at least you are on the other side of he pennines ,more prone to snow in general.Im in manchester[low level,80asl] ,so for me,it has been less cloudy and moderatly frosty.So ,actually probably at moment similar to Leeds.Lets see if we get a good frontal snow event eh.If not,hey,nevermind.Winter is not over yet. Edited February 1, 2012 by greybing

[greybing]

Gimmie a greenland high anyday over this. Easterlies often promise so much and in the end deliver nothing too special . As you say with easterlies everything has to be positioned just right all the pieces of the jigsaw have to be in place for a special cold spell when it comes to easterlies for the BI anyway .More often then not they arent. With greenland highs things are generally more favourable for special cold spells and with them there is less of the "will the cold come or will it not",will it,wont it. Things are usually more clear cut when it comes to greenland highs.

I agree,but at least it is actually cold at the moment with better odds for more cold and or snow than nov,dec and most of jan.

[jean91]

look at theses temps below for my area ( south of Paris)-7,2c not bad and a windchill of -15c!!!just a start tomorrow should be 3 to 5c colder!!!

Edited February 2, 2012 by jean91

[Tom Quintavalle]

look at theses temps below for my area ( south of Paris)-7,2c not bad and a windchill of -15c!!!just a start tomorrow should be 3 to 5c colder!!!

Bonjour Jean,

Makes me shiver just looking at that map, Europe well and truly in the freezer. Polar Bears on the Seine, soon!

Regards,

Tom.

[Eugene]

Intense cold pool over europe being harder to break down than alot of members were thinking, i think steve murr and TEITS only posters to out of this with their reputations intact.

[frozencanals]

look at theses temps below for my area ( south of Paris)-7,2c not bad and a windchill of -15c!!!just a start tomorrow should be 3 to 5c colder!!!

Yep looks like it is going to be a challenging weekend in France... I will be getting my usual flight home out of Gatwick to Bordeaux tomorrow afternoon escaping the UK snow just in time, only to see it fall on the Charente on Sunday, so not sure how good my chances will be of getting back to Gatwick on Monday. Wife says it is currently -8C in the garden!

FC

[Andy Bown]

Has anybody else recorded their lowest temperature since Christmas Night 2010?

Last night's minimum was -4.2c which was colder than any night since the aforementioned date!

[jean91]

Quick answer am at work!!!!!! : not yet On the 26th december 2010 -7.8c for Orly Airport and this morning -7.5C at 09h00 hours local time theses are the 2 lowest since the 26th december 2010.Tomorrow low forecasted -9c to -11c here ( will be hard to reach -12c i think) .Will let you know!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Team Jo]

Seems as though the MetO weather warning pages are broken.

Slight ramp in traffic methinks??

[Liam J]

-5.7c last night, the coldest since December 2010. Sitting @ 1.7c now.

[greybing]

-2.8 here .so not that cold,now 1.6.with high cloud.

Edited February 2, 2012 by greybing

[Peter H]

The weather this week has been really not that cold here, Certainly no frost to speak of. It's set to turn milder by Saturday with rain and temperatures up to 10 /11 by Monday, so yet another non event for the west of the UK.

Today was actually quite pleasant in the sunshine. Current conditions are plus 4, and partly cloudy, but very dry.

The largely snowless winter here is set to continue I'm afraid..

[knocker]

Has anybody else recorded their lowest temperature since Christmas Night 2010?

Last night's minimum was -4.2c which was colder than any night since the aforementioned date!

I haven't the data to hand but I would suspect we did here with -4.1C which is quite cold for these parts.

[The PIT]

Lowest so far here is -3.7C on Jan 15th 2012 cloud has been been the main culprit in keeping the temps up. The present cold spell looks like -2.5C being the lowest so far.

[summer blizzard]

Forecast is for -5C in Leeds tonight which should be interesting.

[Terminal Moraine]

The lowest temperature of the winter so far occurred just after 0900 this morning with a minimum of -2.8c. Tonight may be colder if the cloud clears but it's not showing any signs of breaking yet.

[reef]

We've actually just dropped to 0.0C for the first time during this spell.

Temperatures so far have beeb pretty static between 1-3C most of the time.

[Isolated Frost]

-3.0c here, coldest of the spell.

[nick sussex]

You know its cold when snow is falling in Bilbao and Santander in northern Spain!

It's been the coldest day here since the winter of 2009/2010, top temperature scraped upto -3c, snow started falling this morning and has continued on and off throughout the day, what was great about this snow was the powdery nature and not that horrible wet stuff thats a pain to shovel!

[The PIT]

Powdery stuff can be a pain when it blows straight off your shovel though. Made laugh in Autumn when a women working for the local council was going on about how easy it was to clear snow. I bet she's never tried shovelling a foot of wet snow in her life. It ain't easy it's bloomin tiring and is one of the reasons some unfit folk suffer heart attacks.

Going back to poundary stuff I did once clear part of a path once using a garden vac on blow.

[damianslaw]

Shap got down to -9 degrees last night, suspect we saw -6 or -7 degrees, which would make last night probably the coldest since christmas day 2010. We saw -5 degrees on the 18 Dec 2011 and also 14/15 jan.

[TobyT]

Coldest here this year so far, down to -3.6c at the moment and had a light snow flurry about an hour ago