Winter 2021-22 Chat, Moans and ramps thread

[Robbie Coldrain]

Running out of time now for low lying parts of the south. In 4 weeks time the sun will be too high for any lasting snow.  That's not say it can't snow with a cold snap, but it's means the drip drip sound of the snow melting as soon as the sun comes out.

[RJBingham]

Saw my first daffs in flower yesterday, always a cheery sight, the dark miserable months will soon be behind us.

[Donegal]

Have these boring HP in winter become more common and long lasting over the last 15 years or so? Feels like it this past 6 or 7 years especially.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Donegal

[mb018538]

1 hour ago, Robbie Coldrain said:

Running out of time now for low lying parts of the south. In 4 weeks time the sun will be too high for any lasting snow.  That's not say it can't snow with a cold snap, but it's means the drip drip sound of the snow melting as soon as the sun comes out.

Same as pretty much every other year then. We were promised nirvana this year with La Nina and EQBO.....in reality it's delivered nothing yet again.

[sundog]

Still think that however much the teleconnections favoured a decent chance of a good winter,we were cursed by that very warm September. 

[Wimbledon88]

3 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

1981/82 ended on a mild note. Wasn’t February 1982 quite mild, after the cold January?

True that. 

Looking back through the records it's extremely rare to have 2/3 extremely cold winter months. 62/63 and 78/79 being the exception. Even the famous winter of 1947 had quite a bland January. And the oft talked about 09/10 and 10/11 Winters only had a very cold snowy couple of weeks , perhaps a few more up north. London forecast high for the next 6/7days is around 5c. Boring I know but below normal. Plenty of time for fun and games yet. I've seen the models being wrong before.

[goosey007]

1 hour ago, Staffmoorlands said:

Looks like we could be ending January as we started it with high pressure and mild air from the canaries 

 

I love cold and snow but Iiving in south wales I am loving this dry cold calm weather ! beats rains and storms by a million miles second best option for me. lets see what Feb brings !

[Downburst]

Taking the Phoenix Park in Dublin as an example. Looking at rainfall over the last 12 months. We had 683 mm. However, in that there was April: 16.2 , June: 14.2, September: 33 mm (a lot by comparison, but still <60% of normal month) and November 17.5. Now we have 14mm for Jan and that is not likely to grow much. Clearly something is going on here with repeated High Pressure reducing rainfall. No doubt cyclical and the reverse will happen, but who knows. Perhaps La Nina related.

[Summer8906]

57 minutes ago, Wimbledon88 said:

True that. 

Looking back through the records it's extremely rare to have 2/3 extremely cold winter months. 62/63 and 78/79 being the exception. Even the famous winter of 1947 had quite a bland January. And the oft talked about 09/10 and 10/11 Winters only had a very cold snowy couple of weeks , perhaps a few more up north. London forecast high for the next 6/7days is around 5c. Boring I know but below normal. Plenty of time for fun and games yet. I've seen the models being wrong before.

I think it was pretty mild, yes. 1981-82 was fairly similar to 2010-11 in some ways, but 1982 had significant January snow while 2011 didn't.

From memory, the snow of the January snowy spell thawed very, very slowly even though the second half of the month was milder.

February was apparently mild; however I only have limited memories of the month, both in the half-term. The half-term Monday (this could have been either the 15th or the 22nd, can't remember the exact dates of half-term that year) was sunny and spring-like, and then there was another day later in the week, perhaps the Friday, which was foggy with rain towards evening. Overall the month I think was dry, mild, cloudy and non-descript.

In terms of this year, my betting is for one of Feb/March to be dry and anticyclonic, and the other somewhat wetter and zonal. Possibility of both Feb and March being fine. Reason being is that this seems to be the pattern after Januaries with a lot of anticyclonic weather and temps close to average (including mildish or coldish, but discounting anticyclonic months with extreme temperatures such as 1987 or 1989). From memory:

1981 - Feb coldish and anticyclonic, March mildish and very wet

1991 - Feb very cold snowy spell, March mild, rather mixed

1992 - Feb dry and anticyclonic, rather mild, March rather mild and somewhat changeable

1997 - Feb mild, wet and windy, March warm, dry and sunny

2000 - much the same as 1997,  but Feb not quite as wet

2003 - Feb dry and average, March dry and warm

2012 - Feb dry, first half cold, second half mild; March dry and extremely warm at times

2017 - Feb and March mild and mixed (dry and wet spells)

2019 - Feb very warm, dry and sunny, March first half wet, second half much drier

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906

[Froze were the Days]

1 hour ago, mb018538 said:

We were promised nirvana this year with La Nina and EQBO

Personally feel that teleconnections don't mean a lot now days now global warming is in full steam ahead mode with the warmer continents and sea surface temperatures...not even sure about the impacts of sunspots any more. 

[Staffmoorlands]

3 minutes ago, Froze were the Days said:

Personally feel that teleconnections don't mean a lot now days now global warming is in full steam ahead mode with the warmer continents and sea surface temperatures...not even sure about the impacts of sunspots any more. 

Completely agree with this. This has caught a few people out this winter but not the Met Office - they expected the recent climate warming to override any positive teleconnections 

[knocker]

Perhaps worth considering a change of title for the main MOD thread from 'hunt for cold' to 'hunt for chionophiles'.

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, RJBingham said:

Saw my first daffs in flower yesterday, always a cheery sight, the dark miserable months will soon be behind us.

I do welcome the nights drawing out (the 4-5pm hour now seems to be dominated by daylight, rather than darkness - it only going properly dark after 5) but I have to say January is too early for daffodils. IMO flowers coming out too early detracts from the joy of when they are actually due to flower, in March in the case of daffodils.

Hoping for that anticyclonic warm and sunny March this year, it's been quite a while (2014) since the last one, despite them being common from 1990-2014.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

1 hour ago, Wimbledon88 said:

True that. 

Looking back through the records it's extremely rare to have 2/3 extremely cold winter months. 62/63 and 78/79 being the exception. Even the famous winter of 1947 had quite a bland January. And the oft talked about 09/10 and 10/11 Winters only had a very cold snowy couple of weeks , perhaps a few more up north. London forecast high for the next 6/7days is around 5c. Boring I know but below normal. Plenty of time for fun and games yet. I've seen the models being wrong before.

Not so sure 5C highs in Southern England is boring. It's quite a novelty these days!

Much more boring IMO is an extreme zonal month like January 2020 when you struggle to get even single-figure maxima, never mind below-average. Personally glad that we're not seeing a repeat of that absolute-horror-show winter.

[karyo]

8 minutes ago, Froze were the Days said:

Personally feel that teleconnections don't mean a lot now days now global warming is in full steam ahead mode with the warmer continents and sea surface temperatures...not even sure about the impacts of sunspots any more. 

Agreed! No matter what the teleconnections show we always end up mild or average at best. 

An earlier post mentioned the daffodils flowering already. I remember first seeing this in January 1998 (strong el nino year) and thinking that's a rare event. Well, now it is nearly a yearly occurence as our winters have been taken over by the extension of autumn and spring.

[RabbitEars]

With all this high pressure and lack of precipitation (snow or otherwise) one would hope that the water utilities companies are keeping a good eye on reservoir levels. January is traditionally quite a wet month... we haven't really seen this. In fact it looks like on average November and December 2021 were drier too.... where's our rainy days gone? 

[Summer8906]

17 minutes ago, RabbitEars said:

With all this high pressure and lack of precipitation (snow or otherwise) one would hope that the water utilities companies are keeping a good eye on reservoir levels. January is traditionally quite a wet month... we haven't really seen this. In fact it looks like on average November and December 2021 were drier too.... where's our rainy days gone? 

Not sure but Dec 2021 seemed quite wet in the south, with two wet spells for the first 11 days or so, and again from around Christmas Eve or so to the end of the month. I think the first week or so of January, up to about the 9th or 10th, was pretty wet also here.

We did seem to get a long run of wet months before that though, with, IIRC, every month from Oct 2020 to Feb 2021 and also May 2021 to July 2021 being wetter than average here, and Aug and Oct 2021 being not far from average - so here in the south at least, we need some dry weather. It's of note that the ground is still very damp in places.

On that subject we have drizzle today, which I wasn't expecting given that the wind has veered from southerly to northerly overnight and the air was much clearer and fresher this morning than yesterday...

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906

[knocker]

18 minutes ago, RabbitEars said:

With all this high pressure and lack of precipitation (snow or otherwise) one would hope that the water utilities companies are keeping a good eye on reservoir levels. January is traditionally quite a wet month... we haven't really seen this. In fact it looks like on average November and December 2021 were drier too.... where's our rainy days gone? 

Yes the rainfall stats are quite interesting

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/CURR.html

[Chris Smith]

This is going to go down in history as "The Bartlett Winter".

[mountain shadow]

1 minute ago, Chris Smith said:

This is going to go down in history as "The Bartlett Winter".

This is not a Bartlett High. A Bartlett high is centered over the Alps  this is UK.

[Summer8906]

13 minutes ago, knocker said:

Yes the rainfall stats are quite interesting

http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/CURR.html

Interesting also that parts of the south are still decidedly mild with anomalies well above 1.5C, despite mostly average temps since the 4th and many frosts. For example, Thorney Island +1.5, Portland +1.8 and the much-less-coastal High Wycombe +1.9. Average maxima also around 9C for most of the south, which is at least 2C above average. So as yet, still a decidedly mild month; would be interesting to see how much difference removing the first three days would make.

(EDIT, not so much. I just tried calculating the average max based on 16C for the 1st, 13C for the 2nd and 3rd, and 7C for every day since. I get an average max of just over 8C, so it looks like even the period since the 4th has been mild compared to the norm).

What is interesting is the general perception is that it has been cold for the past week or so, while the figures do not suggest this and it's actually been slightly milder than average. It does seem extremely rare to get genuine prolonged even cold-ish weather in January these days, and anticyclonic spells in winter are much milder than they used to be. At one time it would be given that a high in January, without a notable W or SW feed, would produce temps at least slightly below average.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906

[johncam]

9 minutes ago, mountain shadow said:

This is not a Bartlett High. A Bartlett high is centered over the Alps  this is UK.

For us has had the same effect to be honest 

[northwestsnow]

It's actually a valid point regarding Exeter factoring in GW into their LRF's..perhaps when telecommunications like qbo /enso are analysed  it needs to be considered GW can over ride any cold signal.

[Weather Enthusiast91]

January is turning out to be a rather dry month. I do fear that we will be paying for it during the spring. 

As much as I am enjoying these current weather conditions, it does seem fairly common nowadays to have several weeks of wet or dry weather as opposed to it being more balanced. Particularly over the last couple of years.

[Eskimo]

4 minutes ago, johncam said:

For us has had the same effect to be honest 

Sort of. A Bartlett would traditionally give us some of our mildest Winters as it draws up warm southerly air. We've had persistent heights either just to the West or over the top which largely gives us cool but moderate temperatures for the time of year (aka...absolutely boring). 

Would rather take the Bartlett so at least the daffodils can pop up to give us a little hope.