Winter 2021-22 forecasts and predictions

[damianslaw]

We have a run in to early winter thread.. that has gone quiet in recent days given meteorological winter starts in just over a week. We haven't  a thread dedicated to winter forecasts and predictions. Will probably only see activity over next 10 days or so but please use this thread to put your thoughts together for upcoming season. Forecasts and predictions.

I'll give some musings over the weekend.

[claret047]

10 hours ago, damianslaw said:

We have a run in to early winter thread.. that has gone quiet in recent days given meteorological winter starts in just over a week. We haven't  a thread dedicated to winter forecasts and predictions. Will probably only see activity over next 10 days or so but please use this thread to put your thoughts together for upcoming season. Forecasts and predictions.

I'll give some musings over the weekend.

I very much look forward to reading your musings and any other contributions to this thread.

To my simple mind we are due for a below average winter temperature wise and as MIA and others have stated in the Snow and Ice an the Northern Hemisphere thread, ice gains this year are well ahead of recent years at this time, If we have extreme cold under snow and ice cover in these areas then surely the likelihood of high pressure developing to the north and east in favourable positions to enable Atlantic depressions to undercut the UK is that much greater. Also for those of us in the East and Southeast north easterly winds are good for producing snow showers picked up over a comparatively warm North Sea.

I will be keeping a lookout on the RSPB website and other sources to see if our feathered friends migrate early in numbers to our shores,

My prediction based on nothing particularly scientific is that we we will have for the next fortnight or so fairly cold interludes with snow over high ground in the north, with a possibly a little of the white stuff further south if the precipitation is heavy enough, between milder more settled periods.

Beyond then I believe from the middle of the second week of December until Christmas Eve the weather will term settled with high pressure over us dominating the weather and with night time fog and frost dominating. Should the fog be stubborn to clear temperatures will be suppressed to below freezing, otherwise temperatures will be marginally below average. From Christmas Eve until the end of the month we will have more unsettled weather but with higher temperatures crossing the country from the west and with gales.

January I feel will be the most interesting of the months and it will be dependent where a new area of high pressure establishes. If it is to the Southeast of us it will be disappointment all round but if it is to the north east it will be favourable to an entrenched cold spell with snow showers in eastern counties and perhaps more general snow in the south at times. The month will as always have mild incursions as Atlantic depressions try to barrel across the UK. Some will succeed but others will be forced to undercut.

February is going to go one of two ways and knowing our luck it will not be favourable for coldies. The favoured option would be for the high to the northeast to retrograde towards Greenland and for a direct Northerly to be established and not a two day "toppler".

The other less attractive option is for the high pressure to retreat eastwards and for the Atlantic to take charge with a progression of depressions with accompanying heavy rain and gales. 

Perhaps we will have an alternation of both. With the coldest weather in the first half of the month.

March has in recent years been a late winter month rather than an early spring. I expect that trend to continue.

My thoughts are probably completely out of kilter with what becomes reality but it will be interesting for me to see how far out with my predictions.

Kind Regards

Dave

[damianslaw]

8 hours ago, claret047 said:

I very much look forward to reading your musings and any other contributions to this thread.

To my simple mind we are due for a below average winter temperature wise and as MIA and others have stated in the Snow and Ice an the Northern Hemisphere thread, ice gains this year are well ahead of recent years at this time, If we have extreme cold under snow and ice cover in these areas then surely the likelihood of high pressure developing to the north and east in favourable positions to enable Atlantic depressions to undercut the UK is that much greater. Also for those of us in the East and Southeast north easterly winds are good for producing snow showers picked up over a comparatively warm North Sea.

I will be keeping a lookout on the RSPB website and other sources to see if our feathered friends migrate early in numbers to our shores,

My prediction based on nothing particularly scientific is that we we will have for the next fortnight or so fairly cold interludes with snow over high ground in the north, with a possibly a little of the white stuff further south if the precipitation is heavy enough, between milder more settled periods.

Beyond then I believe from the middle of the second week of December until Christmas Eve the weather will term settled with high pressure over us dominating the weather and with night time fog and frost dominating. Should the fog be stubborn to clear temperatures will be suppressed to below freezing, otherwise temperatures will be marginally below average. From Christmas Eve until the end of the month we will have more unsettled weather but with higher temperatures crossing the country from the west and with gales.

January I feel will be the most interesting of the months and it will be dependent where a new area of high pressure establishes. If it is to the Southeast of us it will be disappointment all round but if it is to the north east it will be favourable to an entrenched cold spell with snow showers in eastern counties and perhaps more general snow in the south at times. The month will as always have mild incursions as Atlantic depressions try to barrel across the UK. Some will succeed but others will be forced to undercut.

February is going to go one of two ways and knowing our luck it will not be favourable for coldies. The favoured option would be for the high to the northeast to retrograde towards Greenland and for a direct Northerly to be established and not a two day "toppler".

The other less attractive option is for the high pressure to retreat eastwards and for the Atlantic to take charge with a progression of depressions with accompanying heavy rain and gales. 

Perhaps we will have an alternation of both. With the coldest weather in the first half of the month.

March has in recent years been a late winter month rather than an early spring. I expect that trend to continue.

My thoughts are probably completely out of kilter with what becomes reality but it will be interesting for me to see how far out with my predictions.

Kind Regards

Dave

Thanks for thoughts. Hope we don't have a Christmas week as you suggest. Yuck!

[damianslaw]

My thoughts on December are:

A chilly opening but mid Atlantic heights will soon give way to more of a milder westerly feed. This won't last long, heights will build and ridge north through the UK. A very anticyclonic spell then ensues frost and fog order of the day.. as we approach Christmas these heights will ridge further north and west opening up to possibility of easterly or north easterlies.. or alternatively transfer back west and we see return to nw or northerly feed to see the year out.

The other option is heights won't build north enough and we see them sink back south as the jet powers up meaning a more mobile westerly airstream. 

Either way I can see the current high to our west being the dominant key player where it positions itself will determine conditions.

It's a long time since we've had a predominantly settled December they are rare.. but 2021 may well buck the trend.

[Catacol]

OK - well if I wait much longer it will actually BE winter....and it would hardly be a forecast. So - here goes.

10 Contextual selected factors:

1. eQBO from 50hpa to 30hpa. Favours colder than average.

2. ENSO Weak/Moderate La Nina. Favours early season atlantic ridge, later season +NAO. In combination with eQBO, however, it represents the greatest statistical probability of an SSW.

3. ENSO Nina has moved away from Modoki and looks pretty basin wide, perhaps trending Eastern Pacific. Statistically this suggests a greater tendency for blocking particularly late in the season compared to Modoki. IOD looks weakly negative. Unlikely to be a major driver.

4. Solar - climbing out of solar minimum. The theory here (and let's be honest - it is unproven beyond a relatively small observation sample) is that the jet is likely to be less strong, and blocking more prevalent.

5. Negative PDO and a noticeable move towards a cold anomaly in the Gulf of Alaska. This suggests a less strong Alaskan High than might have been expected 2 months ago. Downstream this may mean less cold for central and eastern USA and by extension fewer cases of deep low pressure forming in the western Atlantic.

6. The vortex is currently running at around average, and looks average for a while. No sign of a strong vortex at this stage.

7. Signs in extended modelling of early December featuring a combination of Ural High and Aleutian Low.

8. Snow cover over Asia was average on the October index, and in November that coverage expanded significantly. Very cold early season over Alaska compared to last 20 years, and Scandinavia also under a deep trough and cold. Cold air looks likely to develop over the polar regions more than previous years, and arctic ice regrowth would seem to back this up at present.

9. Atlantic 'cold blob' seems to have faded this year perhaps suggesting blocking will be more prevalent in the north Atlantic.

10. MJO cycle, previously identified as heading towards phase 6/7/8 by end of November looks to be following that trajectory, perhaps slightly on the slow side. As observed in previous seasons December amplitude would appear to be picking up after a quiet autumn. Early December phase 7/8 and by extension probably phase 7/8 in mid/late Jan plus or minus a week or so.

 

Forecast/Best guess extrapolation:

December Phase:

Early season mid Atlantic ridge I think will hold on longer than some modelling suggests, taking us towards week 2 of the month. Week 1 therefore generally NW flow supported by Nina and MJO and a current increase in torques. Temps average to slightly below average, with outside change of amplitude gaining enough traction for artic air creating the odd wintry surprise as per last weekend of November. By week 2 I expect MJO influence to have moderated, and declining momentum to signal a sinking of the mid atlantic ridge and a period of +NAO flow, perhaps occasionally seeing that ridge push far enough to keep temps pegged a bit. But overall a wetter period and average, maybe slightly above. Key to this phase will be the ridge/trough position hemispherically, but snow cover and Atlantic low pressure suggests ongoing chances of a Ural High and perhaps the Aleutian Low providing poleward wave flux. By month's end the natural ebb and flow of the pattern  should see pressure edging north again in the mid atlantic. Temps back to average, maybe frosty when the ridge moves particularly close to the UK. Less wet.

January Phase

Start of the month tough to call. Pressure on the vortex at this stage should be apparent, around a month after the development of a +NAO December signature but with Ural High and Aleutian Low prevalent. Vertical wave flux will be rising, and signs of stress appearing. But how much? This is where the gambler's instinct is required, moderated I hope by some observational experience but probably also impacted by the hope for colder options. Given the background factors above I think it is not beyond the bounds of reasonableness to suggest the vortex may be more susceptible this year than in most, that blocking in general will gain traction throughout the winter, and that by early January the vortex will be shifted off the pole. Whether it will be pushed Canadian side or Asian side is a really tough call to make, but either way I think it will open up the opportunity for the mid atlantic high to gain traction, and should we get support from the pacific jet via +EAMT or a fastish MJO progression the dry and average end to December morphs into an icelandic ridge. How high will it get? That will depend on the degree of amplification, but the gap will be there via vortex shift. Highest odds would be for a mid block, Omega perhaps, so temps dropping below average and still dry. By mid month relaxation of that pattern will see flattening of the ridge and another mobile phase average temps and wetter, but up top the vortex stress will be becoming very clear, either in real time or on forecasts within 240h. I have plumped on the Twitter poll for a 19th Jan SSW - so sticking to that we see an SSW on the 19th and I am hopeful we get a split. Have to accept at this point that this is a guess - we can't know whether an SSW will split or displace....but as a snow optimist I'll plump for split. As we approach month's end MJO will promote another surge of heights and in the context of the vortex break this ridge will gain proper high lat traction, probably between Iceland and Scandinavia. Temps dropping below average, turning relative dry. Some chances of snow here.

February Phase

Split vortex promotes maintenance of blocking, and cold air outbreaks hemispherically occur. Cannot possibly predict this - but we can hope for the 2018 scenario of a vortex shard dropping down over Russia and rotating east to west....dragging a cold undercut. This would bring a frigid, cold and snow February in general. However an alternative roll of the dice could see a vortex shard drop into the north atlantic, force the tropospheric ridge eastwards and bring in a very mild SW flow. This is the reality of an SSW roll of the dice - both extremes are possible. But let's cross fingers for the 2018 solution.  2-3 week period of blocked weather, snow chances.

March Phase

Who knows. Way too out to tell. February is too far out to tell....but fun to extrapolate a potential cold pattern nonetheless....!

 

Final thought - totally different final 6 weeks of winter if the vortex holds firm (which statistically it won't...but statistics are there to be toppled.) In this scenario flux pressure falls away after the January assault, and vortex recovery combined with decline of MJO blocking influence as January comes to an end would mean a much flatter pattern. An unremarkable February to follow, with high pressure over Europe controlling the pattern.

[Roger J Smith]

This winter should be at least somewhat productive for those who hope to see wintry outcomes, or stated a different way, somewhat concerning for those who hope to avoid them (nobody of that sort here, surely?). 

Even though a lot of the autumn was warmer than average there was always a hint of blocking involved and we have seen several appearances already of strong high pressure in the vicinity of western Russia. It seems to foreshadow the appearance later on, when it matters, of good blocking scenarios. Those are bound to have their impact at least as far west as eastern England and Scotland; as with the winter of 2011-12, I am somewhat less optimistic about prospects further west, but am hoping that this is a marginally better set of conditions than we had in that reasonably good winter, allowing more westward spread at times. 

I think mid-January is likely the best bet this winter for good synoptics to develop, and usually if there is a mid-January cold spell, there will be significant snowfall with that, and a precursor event in mid to late December. 

The new normal for February is almost that it has become a transition to spring and cannot keep pace with the January mean, although of course in 2018 the only real wintry weather came at the very end of February and into parts of March. Even so, I don't think any good winter patterns will survive very far into February before disappearing as they did last winter. 

Overall would say this might be a middle tier winter and probably not as frequently stormy as some, although that is not always well correlated with the intensity of the peak storm event of the winter, but thinking that there might be a lingering mid-Atlantic ridge tendency that will have the effect of keeping storms fairly subdued and unable to tap into the full energy available to storms that come in from a more southwesterly direction. But there is considerable potential energy in some of the background factors and if a mild southwesterly interval develops at some point, one storm could prove to be damaging then. 

Any sort of prolonged mild spell in early December should not be taken as too negative a factor as this seems almost inevitable and should not prevent better patterns from developing later on. Much of December 1978 continued the mild theme of the autumn and there were still some very good developments (for winter enthusiasts) as early as the end of that month. In fact 1978 is one of the better analogues we have for this coming winter. Another less encouraging analogue would be 1898 which numerically is the best correlated autumn -- that winter was rather mild especially for its surrounding normals. On the other hand, 1981 has been quite similar across North America and that might be worth noting as there were strong Pacific signals and those seem perhaps more important to hemispheric climate patterns. 

Just adding in this finding from my research ... the period from about 17th to 23rd of December should be key to the evolution of the mid-winter pattern, as this will be an energy peak. If we see any tendency to prolonged mild southwesterly flow here and multiple deep lows heading northeast, I would say that the onset of better wintry patterns might be delayed. If the tendency in this interval is more towards diving lows and blocking in an early phase, then look out because the energy will subside and the blocking would likely win out quickly. Something more intermediate like one mild southwesterly storm and a diving low closer to Christmas-New Years might signal that the mid-January cold spell was the more likely outcome. This incidentally is where I think the one damaging storm could develop, during this high energy period. A secondary high energy peak 3 to 9 January should be more revealing as to how much wintry potential exists; those disturbances might already be contending with a blocking high meaning this could be a snowy outbreak just after new years. 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Roger J Smith

[damianslaw]

Thanks for thoughts so far. I hope any atlantic return in early Dec is kicked aside by mid month in exchange for a seasonal run in to Christmas. Its 11 years since we've had even just an average lead in temp wise never mind cold. 2012, 2017, 2020 the cold early in Dec came to an abrupt end mid month.. 

[Andrew Davies]

My thoughts of this winter 2021-22 .. another milder than average winter..this would be the 3rd winter since the beast from the east, we barely seen a snow flake here in the South Wales valleys. With the earth's temperature rising the days of snowy winters will be just a distant memory. I'm 47 years old and only the once I ever can remember a truly wonderful snowy winter..1981-82 .snow drifts higher than my front door, since then nothing to right home about. People hyped up December to remember 2010 sorry the best was just curb side deep here in South Wales, sad times ahead for snow lovers unfortunately and olso myself

[iceman1991]

5 hours ago, Andrew Davies said:

My thoughts of this winter 2021-22 .. another milder than average winter..this would be the 3rd winter since the beast from the east, we barely seen a snow flake here in the South Wales valleys. With the earth's temperature rising the days of snowy winters will be just a distant memory. I'm 47 years old and only the once I ever can remember a truly wonderful snowy winter..1981-82 .snow drifts higher than my front door, since then nothing to right home about. People hyped up December to remember 2010 sorry the best was just curb side deep here in South Wales, sad times ahead for snow lovers unfortunately and olso myself

Burrr humbug 

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

 

Andrew Davies wrote

“With the earth's temperature rising the days of snowy winters will be just a distant memory. I'm 47 years old and only the once I ever can remember a truly wonderful snowy winter..1981-82 .snow drifts higher than my front door, since then nothing to right home about.”

 

What about 84/5 85/6 86/7….I can say Swansea had huge snowfalls each year….I don’t think Swansea was alone in South Wales?

 

BFTP
 

 

[Sunny76]

1 hour ago, BLAST FROM THE PAST said:

 

Andrew Davies wrote

“With the earth's temperature rising the days of snowy winters will be just a distant memory. I'm 47 years old and only the once I ever can remember a truly wonderful snowy winter..1981-82 .snow drifts higher than my front door, since then nothing to right home about.”

 

What about 84/5 85/6 86/7….I can say Swansea had huge snowfalls each year….I don’t think Swansea was alone in South Wales?

 

BFTP
 

 

Yeah, and 1990/91 gave many a cold snowy period in December and again in February. 

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

 

I think we are seeing a set up that will likely follow suit through December with no sense of real blocking or any particular cold set up.  HP anchored in and around to our SW with lower heights to NW. There’ll probably be another episode with LP diving to our SE bringing northerlies but rPM or pM airmass predominant…..interspersed with passing tM airmasses for south. Not cold but chilly at times.

January of interest with 2 potential areas of note. The theme similar but more amplification of the Atlantic HP and a more dominant N of W flow.  Around 3-9 the flow could see diving LPs across the UK from NW into Continent.  I don’t think we’ll see any major Scandi HP backing west but a similar set up to this current period (as stormy …possibly ).  It’s been cold so expect it to be colder still.  The dominant HP to our SW/W with LPs to NW/N generally with a rPM and pM dominant airmass for the month.  Big peak energy period end of month with, coldest period of winter to date.  Similar set up to Arwen,  more enhanced.
 

Feb will then have a more pronounced set up of more pronounced Atlantic ridge with LPs on NW to SE trajectory whereby pM and aM are dominant feature.  Chances of a more prolonged episode of Northern blocking into midmonth 

not a mild winter, but not a deep freeze either…..that’ll probably be Spring

BFTP

 

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Just to add, I think the rapidly cooling Arctic is impressive in how it is wide-spreadly plummeting up there.  The ice recovery is also very impressive and very noteworthy too. (Great updates posted by MIA on the ice and snow thread). Nose diving now below the 1958-2002 baseline…..impressive.  (Antarctica just had coldest 6 months recorded)

 On that basis I also think this may well throw sone curve balls into the atmospheric set up as it were and likely record cold /snow date events across large parts of the NH continents will be had.  Certainly any cold we get will have somewhat more bite to it…(even transient affairs bringing surprise events).  I’ve been doing very early starts, and even in innocuous set ups….it’s been darn chilly.  

 

BFTP

Edited November 29, 2021 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[damianslaw]

8 hours ago, BLAST FROM THE PAST said:

 

I think we are seeing a set up that will likely follow suit through December with no sense of real blocking or any particular cold set up.  HP anchored in and around to our SW with lower heights to NW. There’ll probably be another episode with LP diving to our SE bringing northerlies but rPM or pM airmass predominant…..interspersed with passing tM airmasses for south. Not cold but chilly at times.

January of interest with 2 potential areas of note. The theme similar but more amplification of the Atlantic HP and a more dominant N of W flow.  Around 3-9 the flow could see diving LPs across the UK from NW into Continent.  I don’t think we’ll see any major Scandi HP backing west but a similar set up to this current period (as stormy …possibly ).  It’s been cold so expect it to be colder still.  The dominant HP to our SW/W with LPs to NW/N generally with a rPM and pM dominant airmass for the month.  Big peak energy period end of month with, coldest period of winter to date.  Similar set up to Arwen,  more enhanced.
 

Feb will then have a more pronounced set up of more pronounced Atlantic ridge with LPs on NW to SE trajectory whereby pM and aM are dominant feature.  Chances of a more prolonged episode of Northern blocking into midmonth 

not a mild winter, but not a deep freeze either…..that’ll probably be Spring

BFTP

 

Colder version of 14-15 then? Which delivered alot of polar maritime air.. with a Feb 94 perhaps.. 93-94 also brought alot of polar maritime air. 83-84 another one. I'd take that.m could be a notable north south divide, north often on cold side of jet and as this weekend has proven you don't need deep cold uppers to produce cold temps and snow.

Edited November 29, 2021 by damianslaw

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

4 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Colder version of 14-15 then? Which delivered alot of polar maritime air.. with a Feb 94 perhaps.. 93-94 also brought alot of polar maritime air. 83-84 another one. I'd take that.m could be a notable north south divide, north often on cold side of jet and as this weekend has proven you don't need deep cold uppers to produce cold temps and snow.

And with the Arctic really cold with the rapid ice improvement….some surprises too.  pM air will be more biting and northerlies more potent.  Arwen has shown that, I suspect we’ll see occasions of even more potency along the winter. 

 

BFTP

[SLEETY]

met office typically not intrested in a cold winter again.

[Don]

2 hours ago, SLEETY said:

met office typically not intrested in a cold winter again.

Do you have a link?

[Don]

8 minutes ago, Don said:

Do you have a link?

You mean this.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/business/public-sector/civil-contingency/3moutlook-djfv1secure.pdf

[Daniel*]

My winter forecast is out

 

 

[damianslaw]

2 hours ago, Daniel* said:

My winter forecast is out

 

 

Excellent thoughts. Well done putting the time into it.

[Premiere Neige]

On 25/11/2021 at 00:50, Andrew Davies said:

My thoughts of this winter 2021-22 .. another milder than average winter..this would be the 3rd winter since the beast from the east, we barely seen a snow flake here in the South Wales valleys. With the earth's temperature rising the days of snowy winters will be just a distant memory. I'm 47 years old and only the once I ever can remember a truly wonderful snowy winter..1981-82 .snow drifts higher than my front door, since then nothing to right home about. People hyped up December to remember 2010 sorry the best was just curb side deep here in South Wales, sad times ahead for snow lovers unfortunately and olso myself

That's a very IMBY perspective to be fair. December (and the end of November) 2010 delivered 30 - 40cm of snow where I am and several nights where the temperature was -10 to -15°c. 

[Bradley in Kent]

Here in Kent we benefit most from BFTEs and when sea effect snow kicks in we're in the money. Even this year we managed 8 days of snow cover peaking at 15cm. This was very localised which is my main point: no matter what the overall bsckground winter is (mild or cold) whether or not it delivers can be down to near exact location. 

As for this winter, I don't think it'll be super mild but can't see any Scandi or Greenie  high developing. Probably as mentioned a winter similar to 2014/15, cooler Polar Maritime spells with high pressure nosing in from time to time. 

My gut is really saying 'average', the sort of winter nobody talks about 10 years down the line. 

We'll probably get a slider or two in January but it won't be long before people look to spring!

[Roger J Smith]

I was reading this over and there were some interesting thoughts that were not all completely wrong although generally speaking the winter was probably milder overall than most were thinking it would be. Those who were basing any conclusions on a SSW event didn't get service there so their conclusions while logical if so, were not valid as a result. 

January at least did provide a fairly long interval of rather cold weather after record warmth at first. This cold had no wintry aspects other than slight frosts, and there have been very few lying snow events in many parts of England and lower elevations of Wales and Scotland.

The one good thing about a winter with mostly mild weather is that it will tend to verify all comments made about mild weather, so there is that. Looking ahead now, there is one rather cold blast to come later next week that might give a bit of snow in pM type situations, but we may have to wait until mid to late March to get any kind of robust cold east to northeast flows, I can see faint signals of slight cold under ridges of high pressure in early March. 

We have been wasting a lot of good low-solar opportunities and maybe what we need is a more active Sun so that we can get back to those more reliable cold winters that seem to like high sunspot periods. All of these winters were in years that were either sunspot maxima or within the peak intervals ... 1917, 1929, 1940, 1947, 1956, 1969, 1979, 1991. Only the last active peak (1999-2001) seemed to fail entirely to produce one. Also in the 19th century, these winters verified the principle: 1838, 1861, 1870, 1890-91 through 1894-95 (several). The hits were a bit wider of the mark in the 18th century although several notable cold ones closer to a max than a min. 

I don't look at this process as closely in solar downturns because even the maxima are not very active then. The coldest winters in the Dalton seemed fairly randomly scattered relative to the weak solar cycles of that era. The Maunder had no real cycles anyway so it's a moot point. The 1905-07 solar max was rather weak as was 1883, neither of them aligned with a conspicuously cold winter. The 2009-11 cold winters were basically at a solar minimum (as was 2018). 

[North-Easterly Blast]

On 20/02/2022 at 05:08, Roger J Smith said:

I was reading this over and there were some interesting thoughts that were not all completely wrong although generally speaking the winter was probably milder overall than most were thinking it would be. Those who were basing any conclusions on a SSW event didn't get service there so their conclusions while logical if so, were not valid as a result. 

January at least did provide a fairly long interval of rather cold weather after record warmth at first. This cold had no wintry aspects other than slight frosts, and there have been very few lying snow events in many parts of England and lower elevations of Wales and Scotland.

The one good thing about a winter with mostly mild weather is that it will tend to verify all comments made about mild weather, so there is that. Looking ahead now, there is one rather cold blast to come later next week that might give a bit of snow in pM type situations, but we may have to wait until mid to late March to get any kind of robust cold east to northeast flows, I can see faint signals of slight cold under ridges of high pressure in early March. 

We have been wasting a lot of good low-solar opportunities and maybe what we need is a more active Sun so that we can get back to those more reliable cold winters that seem to like high sunspot periods. All of these winters were in years that were either sunspot maxima or within the peak intervals ... 1917, 1929, 1940, 1947, 1956, 1969, 1979, 1991. Only the last active peak (1999-2001) seemed to fail entirely to produce one. Also in the 19th century, these winters verified the principle: 1838, 1861, 1870, 1890-91 through 1894-95 (several). The hits were a bit wider of the mark in the 18th century although several notable cold ones closer to a max than a min. 

I don't look at this process as closely in solar downturns because even the maxima are not very active then. The coldest winters in the Dalton seemed fairly randomly scattered relative to the weak solar cycles of that era. The Maunder had no real cycles anyway so it's a moot point. The 1905-07 solar max was rather weak as was 1883, neither of them aligned with a conspicuously cold winter. The 2009-11 cold winters were basically at a solar minimum (as was 2018). 

I have always thought that being near to or just after solar minimum the chance of colder winters was better.  I always thought that being near or just after solar maximum the chance of a cold winter was slim.  I always thought that the lower that solar activity was, the better the chance was of the development of northern high latitude blocking.  It makes one question as to the fact that close to solar minimum very recently, winters 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22 have been so mild and produced so little in the way of cold outbreaks for the UK, and it does make one begin to wonder if it is ever again realistically possible for a prolonged spell of cold weather to develop again in the UK.  It raises serious questions about whether a winter like 2017-18 or 2020-21 may be regarded as cold or possibly even severe in the modern post 2013 era, and makes one wonder if 2017-18 and 2020-21 are the modern versions of 2009-10, December 2010 and winter 2012-13, and one has to think that winters like 2009-10, spells like December 2010 or winter 2012-13 are now possibly extinct and may well never be seen again.

Edited February 21, 2022 by North-Easterly Blast

[damianslaw]

12 minutes ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

I have always thought that being near to or just after solar minimum the chance of colder winters was better.  I always thought that being near or just after solar maximum the chance of a cold winter was slim.  I always thought that the lower that solar activity was, the better the chance was of the development of northern high latitude blocking.  It makes one question as to the fact that close to solar minimum very recently, winters 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22 have been so mild and produced so little in the way of cold outbreaks for the UK, and it does make one begin to wonder if it is ever again realistically possible for a prolonged spell of cold weather to develop again in the UK.  It raises serious questions about whether a winter like 2017-18 or 2020-21 may be regarded as cold or possibly even severe in the modern post 2013 era, and makes one wonder if 2017-18 and 2020-21 are the modern versions of 2009-10, December 2010 and winter 2012-13, and one has to think that winters like 2009-10, spells like December 2010 or winter 2012-13 are now possibly extinct and may well never be seen again.

Probably need to wait a good 10 years before we can summise such a thing, we had a long period between 1894-95 and 1939-40 with only a couple of notably cold winters 16-17 and 28-29 and that was a time when global temps were much cooler.

Late Feb / early March 2018 though short lived was quite exceptional, and even last April was a turn up for the books..