Spring moans, ramps, chat and banter

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

38 minutes ago, ManiaMuse said:

No-one did, but I'd gladly listen to examples where cold/snowy/icy is good for people or industry in this country. This country simply isn't prepared like other countries for deep sustained cold/snow for the simple reason that it is pretty rare, definitely not as common as people seem to expect. Growing up in the East Midlands in the 90s I can only remember one properly cold and snowy winter and in the 00s it almost never snowed from my memory. 2009/2010 seems to have distorted expectations of cold prospects in this country I think.

And I didn't say I wanted more wet, just damp and gloomy if that is the price for mild.  Or at a push seasonal temperatures but dry.

In tropical south Norfolk, we had at least one snowy post-Christmas period during the mid-1990s ('95?), in what was otherwise a decade with not much in the way of cold winters.  I have photos of two winters during the '00s with at least two inches of snow here (admittedly one was 2009), so you must have been unlucky to go that long without snow, given that I grew-up and still live no more than 20 miles from the sea to the east and little more than 30 to the north.

As for cold not being good for us - neither are damaging autumnal storms, hot weather in summer or too much rain.  If we only ever wanted weather that didn't pose even the slightest risk, we'd want every day of every year to be 14C with drizzle.  By the sounds of it, you'd love that, but I suspect many on here would lose all interest in meteorology if that were the case.  To labour the point, one might as well expect a motorsport enthusiast, such as myself, to want every race to consist of a single lap, in line astern, at 5 mph, as it's the only way to absolutely guarantee that there won't be any injuries.   Ask any motorsport enthusiast if they'd still follow the sport in those circumstances, though, and I doubt you'd find anyone who would!

Lest I go even further O/T, I'm backing-out now.  Apologies Mods.  If I'm to be guilt-tripped for wanting interesting weather, I'll leave the forum - I want my interests to be pleasureable, not hijacked by others in order to make me dislike myself more than I already do.

Edited January 8, 2016 by chrisbell-nottheweatherman

[ManiaMuse]

7 minutes ago, ReindeerMarmalade said:

Must be just awful preferring the weather we usually get in this country. It's nice to see you're soldiering on, though, and I hope you had the support of family and friends during the incredibly difficult past few days when it looked like we actually risked having seasonal weather in winter  

And I think we're all in agreement rain is never an inconvenience. Right, Cumbria? 

I didn't say it wasn't an inconvenience, but the fact is we live on a wet island with a culture and history very much defined by the weather we get from the Atlantic. Flooding is a regular fact of life despite our best efforts to contain/control the floodwaters,

Whether it is Cumbria, Somerset/Devon/Cornwall, Essex, Yorkshire, Scotland, Thames Valley, Kent or wherever, flooding happens in this country. It's difficult for us to predict exactly where and when and some areas get hit more often than others, but most people generally know (or really ought to know!) if they live in an area which has the potential to be flooded.

[ReindeerMarmalade]

@ManiaMuse You want "mild and damp", despite it being an inconvenience to a lot of people, but write-off snow because it's also an inconvenience. That bit amused me. I don't know of many people who've been snowed out of their homes for weeks on end  

Seasonal weather is more important than whether people find it enjoyable or not. But then if you grew up in the 90s I guess you're used to the current dross we face each winter now.

[heccygabber]

Looks like the latest model runs aren't any better than the previous for cold/snow.

[ManiaMuse]

12 minutes ago, ReindeerMarmalade said:

@ManiaMuse You want "mild and damp", despite it being an inconvenience to a lot of people, but write-off snow because it's also an inconvenience. That bit amused me. I don't know of many people who've been snowed out of their homes for weeks on end  

Seasonal weather is more important than whether people find it enjoyable or not. But then if you grew up in the 90s I guess you're used to the current dross we face each winter now.

Well if it is the norm for a quarter of a century then perhaps it is the new seasonal?

Severe cold does kill thousands of vulnerable people when it happens, especially the sickly and elderly in poorly insulated homes and not enough money to spend on heating. But it's probably not as obvious a peril as tv pictures of people being rescued from floodwaters.

Ignore the voice of reason at your peril

[Liam J]

Poor set of model output this evening, despite the eye candy charts over the last 24-48hrs, the Met Office demonstrating their prowess held firm with the fact it was only ever likely to be a short lived colder spell, people were moaning why they weren't forecasting prolonged cold weather.... A bit gutted but hey ho it's only the weather!! Now can the pendulum swing back the other way please... At least some frost and snow will be in the forecast next week. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by *Sub*Zero*

[I Cumbria Marra I]

thank god for the ignore option

[Liam J]

ECM tease at day 10... Not again!

[ReindeerMarmalade]

15 minutes ago, ManiaMuse said:

Well if it is the norm for a quarter of a century then perhaps it is the new seasonal?

Severe cold does kill thousands of vulnerable people when it happens, especially the sickly and elderly in poorly insulated homes and not enough money to spend on heating. But it's probably not as obvious a peril as tv pictures of people being rescued from floodwaters.

Ignore the voice of reason at your peril

Thank you  @ManiaMuse you've cheered me up no end after a day of rubbish outputs. People pay good money for this sort of amateur dramatics  

[radiohead]

2 minutes ago, *Sub*Zero* said:

ECM tease at day 10... Not again!

Considering how shockingly awful the models have been at the 120-192 range over the past few days, that 240 chart is probably equally as accurate as a random chart pulled from the NCEP archives during any winter in the past century!

[Woollymummy]

2 hours ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

I've not been following the models for very long, but surely a 180 degree change (almost straight northerlies to, on the 12z GFS for next Saturday, a southerly straight from North Africa) must be rare within 24-36 hours?  What on earth could be causing the models to change so dramatically?

It's just a wave moving along, if you are one of the dots in the picture, and the wave is going along in the direction of the bottom arrow, left to right, the wave will pass by you and things in that wave, in this case air moving, will change direction relative to you. The more amplified the wave, the bigger the change in direction.

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

4 minutes ago, Woollymummy said:

It's just a wave moving along, if you are one of the dots in the picture, and the wave is going along in the direction of the bottom arrow, left to right, the wave will pass by you and things in that wave, in this case air moving, will change direction relative to you. The more amplified the wave, the bigger the change in direction.

Thank - I knew this was the case, but I was being a touch un-specific by describing it as I did.  I was using our location within the NH as my frame of reference rather than that of a part of the longwave.

[mountain shadow]

What a massive let down this has been. A couple of days ago the models had me in sub -5 degree 850s for at least ten days, tonight's ECM…ONE, yes ONE.

The GFS pub run being better than the UK met model, who would have thought it.

[Woollymummy]

12 minutes ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

Thank - I knew this was the case, but I was being a touch un-specific by describing it as I did.  I was using our location within the NH as my frame of reference rather than that of a part of the longwave.

That's ok, wasn't sure what you knew 

[knocker]

Ge GEFS anomaly was suggesting the ridging over the UK yesterday before an unsettled westerly regime returns

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

5 minutes ago, knocker said:

Ge GEFS anomaly was suggesting the ridging over the UK yesterday before an unsettled westerly regime returns

How likely would you say the anomaly that far out is to verify?   I know it's what you'd like to see, but, given current uncertainty/entropy, can you be confident of flat zonality that far out?

[Froze were the Days]

5 hours ago, Azazel said:

but James Madden says it will be the one of the coldest spells for 50 years.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/632611/UK-Weather-Snow-snowbomb-red-alert-UK-coldest-winter-58-years

 

God I hate that bellend.

 

 

Hahahahaha! succinctly put - I swear he just sniffs around on websites like this and TWO and reads what the 'senior' posters write and like us views the models and hey presto always get his name mentioned in the 'papers' as an 'expert'! - If I had a fiver for the amount of times a forecast (and we're talking between a week and a month ahead) of his has gone down the plug hole in the last year...well I'd be able to have a bloody good night out on the town!

Could go into more detail about his short to medium term forecasts which have gone wrong over the last year but I honestly don't think the bloke is worth the effort.

P.S. Hope your reading this James,

Edited January 8, 2016 by Froze were the Days

[knocker]

8 minutes ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

How likely would you say the anomaly that far out is to verify?   I know it's what you'd like to see, but, given current uncertainty/entropy, can you be confident of flat zonality that far out?

Well given the current uncertainties the anomalies are a better bet to establish the upper air pattern which is easier to model but you obviously cannot just take them on the own but over two or three days, in conjunction with the ecm and NOAA,and the det outputs. But the anomalies having been trending this way so I reckon the T240 a fair percentage play.

[knocker]

I see you've been on the source again. Now come on you know squirrels don't hibernate.

[knocker]

I'll take a rain check on your question Greenland as the answer has been well covered and there is no point in going over it all again. Time to move on. Apart from that what is the point anyway?

Edited January 8, 2016 by knocker

[Daniel*]

44 minutes ago, mountain shadow said:

What a massive let down this has been. A couple of days ago the models had me in sub -5 degree 850s for at least ten days, tonight's ECM…ONE, yes ONE.

The GFS pub run being better than the UK met model, who would have thought it.

Pretty nippy from 120 to 240, there's somewhere in British Isles with -7C 850s.

[Methuselah]

2 minutes ago, Greenland1080 said:

They will when the uk gets this deep Scandy cold...why aren't you posting in mod thread?

A post like that -put in the MOD thread - might get deleted...Nudge, nudge, wink, wink?

[I remember Atlantic 252]

Can only agree EE, especially last 2 charts, yes mildish uppers (south) but very cold/frosty, 0C maxes

[knocker]

With ref to my earlier post the GEFS and ecm at T240. They are on the same page. Now of course this isn't written in stone but amidst the mayhem it is not unreasonable. Of course after that is very much up for grabs but at the moment a cold solution isn't the favourite. As has been seen the GEFS is tending towards an unsettled westerly but the ecm is not having this and at T360 has HP ridging over the UK with the trough over eastern Europe. The good thing about these options is a much drier period with the ecm the better.

 

[Yarmy]

Exhausting work this cold chasing. Just got stuck into a rather spectacular Barolo which I sequestered away from friends, family, and other assorted plebs over Xmas. All set to wince my way through the 18z.

It can't be any worse than the 12z.....can it?