Spring moans, ramps, chat and banter

[March Blizzard]

14 minutes ago, MP-R said:

Well thanks for taking the time to post that Costa. Maybe I should expect each winter to be dominated by the Atlantic, at least then most years my expectations will be exceeded. Sadly, having managed lying snow in the mildest of winters past, it's very difficult to lower my expectations. I will however state that I do not expect winter 09/10 every year lol.

I think in any other winter, given the synoptics we've had, more of us would have had one if not two snow events already. Jan 18th and Feb 13th come to mind here.

Yeah. In a way Winter is like a relay race, with each month representing a runner. In a typical race (Winter) a bad leg by one can be overcome by a good leg from another. However, this year, December reacted late to the gun, stumbled out the blocks and fell flat on it's face as it fumbled the baton to January. We've been playing catch up since, and the race had already been won by the time February handed the baton to March.

And the UK winter relay team aren't the fastest to begin with...

 

Edited February 29, 2016 by March Blizzard

[jethro]

Personally speaking I didn't really expect this winter to be any different than it has been. Everyone knew there was a big El Nino in progress, when that happens our winter is generally mild with any cold coming late in the season. Living in one of the mildest parts of this country, despite living up in the Mendip Hills, pretty much every variable has to be perfectly aligned in order to get a decent snowfall around here - with an El Nino, you can pretty much kiss a cold winter goodbye.

I think it's tempting to head down the route of climate change means our weather has permanently changed, personally, I'm not buying it. That's not to say climate change isn't real - it is. However, every variable cannot be pinned on it. 2010 and we were told the lower ice levels in the Arctic were intrinsically linked to us experiencing such a cold winter. 2016 and the mildest winter on record.....the same reasoning is used.  

[Nights King]

3 minutes ago, jethro said:

Personally speaking I didn't really expect this winter to be any different than it has been. Everyone knew there was a big El Nino in progress, when that happens our winter is generally mild with any cold coming late in the season. Living in one of the mildest parts of this country, despite living up in the Mendip Hills, pretty much every variable has to be perfectly aligned in order to get a decent snowfall around here - with an El Nino, you can pretty much kiss a cold winter goodbye.

I think it's tempting to head down the route of climate change means our weather has permanently changed, personally, I'm not buying it. That's not to say climate change isn't real - it is. However, every variable cannot be pinned on it. 2010 and we were told the lower ice levels in the Arctic were intrinsically linked to us experiencing such a cold winter. 2016 and the mildest winter on record.....the same reasoning is used.  

I agree with most except for your location being poor. Mendips normally offer us good chances once or twice every winter but to have none is a shocker at elevation although I think it is weather not climate. 

[jethro]

12 minutes ago, Nights King said:

I agree with most except for your location being poor. Mendips normally offer us good chances once or twice every winter but to have none is a shocker at elevation although I think it is weather not climate. 

I've been down here for 20 years, 16 of which I've been up in the hills, prior to 2008/9 I'd have to say having little or no snow was fairly normal. Falling snow usually happened a couple of times, but laying snow (more than a dusting) was pretty unusual. I was of the opinion that the METO maps of average days of snow was way off the mark until we had a few winters in a row where we did get snow. Generally speaking I think as a country we get spells of cold/snowy winters and spells where it's in short supply, I don't think that it's ever been any different and I don't think it ever will be. Climate change or not, vast tracts of the NH spends months in total darkness, it gets very cold, it will continue to get very cold. Synoptic patterns dictate whether or not we get the cold filtering down over us, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. That won't change. The myth of us no longer getting cold winters, children growing up not knowing the joys of sledging is in my opinion, precisely that....a myth.

[Cheshire Freeze]

18 minutes ago, jethro said:

I've been down here for 20 years, 16 of which I've been up in the hills, prior to 2008/9 I'd have to say having little or no snow was fairly normal. Falling snow usually happened a couple of times, but laying snow (more than a dusting) was pretty unusual. I was of the opinion that the METO maps of average days of snow was way off the mark until we had a few winters in a row where we did get snow. Generally speaking I think as a country we get spells of cold/snowy winters and spells where it's in short supply, I don't think that it's ever been any different and I don't think it ever will be. Climate change or not, vast tracts of the NH spends months in total darkness, it gets very cold, it will continue to get very cold. Synoptic patterns dictate whether or not we get the cold filtering down over us, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. That won't change. The myth of us no longer getting cold winters, children growing up not knowing the joys of sledging is in my opinion, precisely that....a myth.

The vortex was on completely the wrong axis for us this year again. Any cold outbreaks that did occur filtered into Asia or Canada and N America.

[jethro]

7 hours ago, CreweCold said:

The vortex was on completely the wrong axis for us this year again. Any cold outbreaks that did occur filtered into Asia or Canada and N America.

Exactly. The winter cold is still there, we just didn't get lucky this year. I know there's a theory that the lack of Arctic ice, the open Kara sea etc (a result of climate change) is the reason why the cold didn't spread to here, but the same reason was used in 2010 when we did get lucky with the cold. Different/changed/unusual/extreme/prolonged wet or dry, hot/cold......whatever the weather, it's climate change. It's not, it's weather. Records show our weather here has always been variable, mild snowless winters are nothing new. This has been a pretty typical El Nino winter.

[MP-R]

9 hours ago, March Blizzard said:

Yeah. In a way Winter is like a relay race, with each month representing a runner. In a typical race (Winter) a bad leg by one can be overcome by a good leg from another. However, this year, December reacted late to the gun, stumbled out the blocks and fell flat on it's face as it fumbled the baton to January. We've been playing catch up since, and the race had already been won by the time February handed the baton to March.

And the UK winter relay team aren't the fastest to begin with...

 

Well put! Thank heavens an El Nino doesn't happen every winter, I don't think I could deal with getting cold dregs in mid Feb every year!

Fingers crossed the La Nina and QBO signals for 2016/2017 work in our favour with the deepest cold in the middle of winter, not at either end.

[Speedway Slider]

Not sure if this is the right place, so feel free to move it if required....

The meteor over Scotland last night was timed around 18:45 yes?

Ok, so what did I see this morning around 02:00? 

It was a bright flash, with a small strobe, say a second long.. Did not hear any thunder, as I first thought it was lightning.. I was not in a position to see the source direct, so I'm not sure what it was.. I am in central Leicester, did anyone else see this phenomenon this morning??

Cheers

Speedway Slider

[summer blizzard]

While it won't be anywhere near the actual total i have to say that i'm being forecast some staggering snowfall rates from the GFS for Thursday night in the 3 hour blocks. Gone from 7cm for 3 hour blocks to 10cm for this 12z run. 

While i doubt the total on the ground will exceed 10cm it looks likely that in terms of intensity i'll probably see my heaviest snowfall since the attacking fronts of Jan 13 which were perfect here (16cm confirmed over the 10 days but likely exceeded 20cm since i never got to measure the final front). 

[reef]

11 hours ago, jethro said:

Exactly. The winter cold is still there, we just didn't get lucky this year. I know there's a theory that the lack of Arctic ice, the open Kara sea etc (a result of climate change) is the reason why the cold didn't spread to here, but the same reason was used in 2010 when we did get lucky with the cold. Different/changed/unusual/extreme/prolonged wet or dry, hot/cold......whatever the weather, it's climate change. It's not, it's weather. Records show our weather here has always been variable, mild snowless winters are nothing new. This has been a pretty typical El Nino winter.

Living at sea level within 10 miles from the North Sea coast, what's clear is that the synoptics haven't changed, but there has been a distinct lack of cold air to tap into over the last three years. It has meant that even when the setups have been ideal for snow here it has been just too marginal. In the 1990s and early 2000s winters these same synoptics did deliver and we often got at least a couple of centimeters covering for a day or two in the worst winters. Nowadays with the anomalously warm air being pumped into the Arctic (parts have been 10-20C above normal), lack of sea ice to our direct North (lowest on record) and higher than average SSTs we seem to need better timing and better synoptics to give worthwhile snow here. You could liken it to squeezing a slowly deflating balloon with the cold hitting some areas (even places like Kuwait and Vietnam this winter!), but overall the likelihood slowly reducing over time.

We're now on 38 months without measurable lying snow, a length of time which is unheard of. We'll certainly get decent lying snow again at some point, but it'll take better setups as time goes on.

[Thundery wintry showers]

There was indeed a theory that reduced Arctic sea ice contributed to the cold winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11, but the evidence for this is still tentative and under debate.  I haven't seen many sources blaming our mild wet winter in 2015/16 on the Arctic- the most commonly-cited culprit is the El Nino, which is probably accurate.  

Note, incidentally, that while November/December 2010 were exceptionally warm in the Canadian/American side of the Arctic, temperatures were actually near average in the Barents/Kara Sea area.  They were above normal there in December 2009 and January 2010, but only by about 5C.  Thus, we still had a fair amount of cold air to the N and NE to tap into.

This winter, they have, as Reef said, often been 10-20C above average.  But whereas in the winters of 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2011/12, similar anomalies were largely confined to the Barents/Kara Sea region, during January and February 2016 they've occurred almost everywhere north of 70N.  

4 hours ago, reef said:

We'll certainly get decent lying snow again at some point, but it'll take better setups as time goes on.

I think this is virtually inevitable.  I'm hoping that it will take at least another couple of decades for the lack of cold pooling up north that we've seen this Jan/Feb to become the norm, which is possible since we've had this exceptional El Nino.  

[Summer of 95]

I wonder if the 2010 cold snaps were due to the cold water sinking south immediately following the melting (as the climate doomsayers said would cause the UK to cool down), but now we are in the next stage, where the cold has gone and we are left with permanent warmth over the stretch of Arctic north of Britain, meaning northerlies will never deliver even with perfect synoptics. That seems to explain why every N or NW/ly since 2013 has just brought warmer air. The mid-Jan synoptics were perfect yet they delivered nothing. Even with cold uppers, something stops it being cold enough at ground level.

Which leaves easterlies. Russia is still cold enough, but a side effect of the warming Arctic (and the cold confining itself to America) has seemingly been to render them almost extinct. All we get now is westerly, westerly, westerly with the odd non-cold northerly behind the lows.

Another side effect, which started exactly when the worst melting did, 2007-8, has been rubbish summers. Just like we expected a day or two of lying snow most winters, we expected a day or two of temps around 30C and usually a few spells of at least 3-5 days around 25-27C each summer. Now any heat confines itself to the SE corner (the "Spanish plumes" becoming "Flemish plumes" as has been noted several times), 25C has become the new 30C, and what would have been an average summer 20 years ago (2013 and the early part of 2014) is now a good one. Here it seems that the melting/melted ice is affecting the jet stream, moving it south and leaving us again with constant westerlies/northwesterlies in summer, while eastern Europe bakes. (Russia having what we need but no easterlies to bring it again!) The only times of year we seem to get lasting anticyclones are April and September, when they are at their most "tame". Basically the return of the westerlies is no longer, as they never get lost in the first place. 

One year of "everlasting autumn" would be natural variability, three shows something is up IMO.

If this carries on this is our climate of the future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Island

No thanks. Rather have a new ice age.....

 

[knocker]

 

[K9]

On a plus side to all our disappointment this winter...it's been bucketing down with snow here for the past half an hour with flakes the size of £2 coins....i'm sure it won't last much longer....but it's nice to see whilst it lasts!!!...only second real fall of the winter here...speaks volumes really doesn't it!!!

[cheeky_monkey]

2 hours ago, K9 said:

On a plus side to all our disappointment this winter...it's been bucketing down with snow here for the past half an hour with flakes the size of £2 coins....i'm sure it won't last much longer....but it's nice to see whilst it lasts!!!...only second real fall of the winter here...speaks volumes really doesn't it!!!

you mean first snow of spring ..winter finished on Monday lol

[I remember Atlantic 252]

seems weird that cold air on southern flank of the low? chart must support snow south/rain north?????????

[davehsug]

Horrible, cold windy day. Heavy snow this morning for half an hour, which didn't settle of course & sporadic rain ever since. I'm cheering the ECM on me

[snow freak]

I've really had enough of this insipid winter now and although I love the snow and cold all I want now is sun and heat.  Knowing the UK climate though it will now decide it wants to throw winter at us even though it is Spring and we will have a few months of cold rain instead.  Hate it.

[March Blizzard]

5 hours ago, snow freak said:

I've really had enough of this insipid winter now and although I love the snow and cold all I want now is sun and heat.  Knowing the UK climate though it will now decide it wants to throw winter at us even though it is Spring and we will have a few months of cold rain instead.  Hate it.

To be fair, but what exactly do people expect at this time of year? It's March, not July. It rains, it snows, it's windy, it's frosty, it can be very cold at times, and quite mild and pleasant at others. What we've seen so far this month is pretty standard early March weather, certainly nothing exceptional.

If you want decent, consistent warmth, all one can really do is play the waiting game until we are in the warmer half of the year. As it stands, we have just started the 4th coldest month of the year.

 

 

 

 

[knocker]

The 18z GFS is a nightmare for coldies. Temp set to reach 16C in Middle Wallop.

Be afraid, be very afraid,

 

[March]

1 hour ago, March Blizzard said:

To be fair, but what exactly do people expect at this time of year? It's March, not July. It rains, it snows, it's windy, it's frosty, it can be very cold at times, and quite mild and pleasant at others. What we've seen so far this month is pretty standard early March weather, certainly nothing exceptional.

If you want decent, consistent warmth, all one can really do is play the waiting game until we are in the warmer half of the year. As it stands, we have just started the 4th coldest month of the year.

 

 

 

 

Not here it isn't. November is on average a bit cooler than March. Especially the max temps. 

[IanR]

13 minutes ago, knocker said:

The 18z GFS is a nightmare for coldies. Temp set to reach 16C in Middle Wallop.

Be afraid, be very afraid,

 

how can pleasant 16 temps be a nightmare, gawds sake, bring it on, its time for spring, not more dregs of winter

[beefy201]

Winter has never got going this year and cold has always been shown in FL. Even this current chilly snap was progged  to be colder than what it is 7 days ago. I am a coldie and gutted that I have not even seen one snow flake this winter/spring

[I remember Atlantic 252]

18 hours ago, davehsug said:

Horrible, cold windy day. Heavy snow this morning for half an hour, which didn't settle of course & sporadic rain ever since. I'm cheering the ECM on me

deepest FI but 2 runs on the trot now, bring on Spring! I live at low levels, cannot be arsed with farty rain and 3C

all know of course these charts will downgrade to wet

[Gael_Force]

18 minutes ago, knocker said:

The 18z GFS is a nightmare for coldies. Temp set to reach 16C in Middle Wallop.

Be afraid, be very afraid,

I'm more afraid of the Grimm situation in the model thread!

Somebody spinning a yarn about building snowcover and prolonged cold in Spring.