Winter 2022/23 - Moans, Ramps & Chat

[Summer8906]

4 minutes ago, LRD said:

But it all means that June is more spring than summer and September is more summer than June

No chance!

Anyway, I'll leave it there cos we're going off topic

Yes, I'd better had too, but the June=spring one is the silliest. February is more of a spring month than June! Only happened once in my memory, and even then, only the first 10 days or so. Clue: the year ended in 3.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Summer8906

[swfc]

Think mate were hanging on with our eyelashes. Be OK new year

[SilverWolf]

27 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

.

The Celtic seasons go the other way, with winter starting on Samhain (November 1); 

Samhain is an old ‘cross quarter’ festival, and astrologically falls generally on November 6th or 7th most years. The 31st Oct into November 1st festival, with its various names is a Christian festival…. 

Sorry off topic too! 

Edited December 17, 2022 by SilverWolf

[swfc]

3 minutes ago, SilverWolf said:

Samhain is an old ‘cross quarter’ festival, and astrologically falls generally on November 6th or 7th most years. The 31st Oct into November 1st festival, with its various names is a Christian festival…. 

Sorry off topic too! 

Will it snow in Sheffield Xmas day tho il get my coat and sleeping bag

[Bradley in Kent]

Definitely agree with the impacts of sun. This week, despite the snow cover and sub-zero temperatures, hasn't felt oppressivly dark. (I've found this in Scandinavia).

Rest of the month won't be pretty, cloud, mild, dank and very dark. 

I'm grateful though we've had a decent 10 day cold spell (or 7 days if you only count snow cover).

It's been beautiful out there this week!

[Summer8906]

11 minutes ago, Bradley in Kent said:

Definitely agree with the impacts of sun. This week, despite the snow cover and sub-zero temperatures, hasn't felt oppressivly dark. (I've found this in Scandinavia).

I'm inclined to agree to an extent, as I am sure I would much prefer the Swedish climate to that of the UK.... but that was before I just looked up Stockholm's sunset today. 2.46pm?!? Significantly earlier than even Reykjavik: Sweden is clearly in the wrong time zone.

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Summer8906

[Mapantz]

10 minutes ago, swfc said:

What is zonal weather for the uk

Winds from the ssw. Mild, wet and  boring. How can any air flow from the east be zonal. It can't by default ie west to east flow and motion

zonal flow

ASTRO.VAPORIA.COM

Reverse zonal has been used for as long as I can remember, that is, if it's showing on the charts.

[The Enforcer]

41 minutes ago, Mark wheeler said:

Hey thats great and the 12z mighty navgem was also great . Lets hope the 12:45am run follows . 

Until then those 850 temps go down, down, down after some turbulence.

 

 

 

[RJBingham]

OK. had a quick scan of the MAD thread,  white Christmas still on, apparently, just a matter of picking the model with the desired outcome.  

[Convergence]

Although the focus for most of us is the hunt for cold snow and blizzards, today looks like it might well deliver some even more unusual winter weather for rather a lot of us.

Right now we've got a band of rain/sleet/snow piling in from the SW and falling onto surfaces which have been in the freezer for about a week. Combined with high winds further North this may prove quite disruptive for large parts of the country as shown by today's Met Office warnings. Take care out there today, it may be very transient and short-lived but it could well be unussually icy today, especially on the roads.

[paget]

Morning, I’m new to this thread!  I used to post a fair bit in the South East one as I lived in Farnham, Surrey.  A year ago we moved 600 miles north to Tullynessle in Aberdeenshire, a gorgeous glen near Alford. We moved for lots of reasons (lost both my parents within a week in 2020) we have always loved Scotland but quite a big factor was the weather! Too hot for us down south and not enough snow!!

We have now had lying thick snow on the ground for 10 days, lows of -12, never seen anything like it! We must have had over 30cm in the week.!  Forecasts for us show rain tomorrow but possibly back to cold weather by the weekend! 
I’m still hoping for a white Christmas one way or another!! 
 
temp -2.3

dp -2.7 

[stainesbloke]

33 minutes ago, paget said:

Morning, I’m new to this thread!  I used to post a fair bit in the South East one as I lived in Farnham, Surrey.  A year ago we moved 600 miles north to Tullynessle in Aberdeenshire, a gorgeous glen near Alford. We moved for lots of reasons (lost both my parents within a week in 2020) we have always loved Scotland but quite a big factor was the weather! Too hot for us down south and not enough snow!!

We have now had lying thick snow on the ground for 10 days, lows of -12, never seen anything like it! We must have had over 30cm in the week.!  Forecasts for us show rain tomorrow but possibly back to cold weather by the weekend! 
I’m still hoping for a white Christmas one way or another!! 
 
temp -2.3

dp -2.7 

Looks beautiful and hope you’re very happy there. Aberdeenshire is lovely  

[Weather-history]

Remember the days when you wanted to know the possiibilty of the weather so far ahead, you had to 

a) read a long range newspaper forecast at the start of the month or by some pundit such as Bill Foggitt

b) watch BBC Sunday lunchtime forecast or the BBC lunchtime Wednesday forecast

c) phone up some weather company who gave long range forecasts.

Sometimes I wish we were back to those days  

[Ladyofthestorm]

I'm reading a significant amount of mild ramping .

We have just had our coldest early part of December since 2010 and I do not see anything in any charts that suggests  Atlantic driven weather for the rest of it. 

Yes mild incursion, but it is brief. 

Christmas day away from South of England and Wales looks potentially a white one,  

Indeed the GFS is beginning to come into a more reliable timeframe now 

A clear -10 850pha across Scotland and Northern England  from a Greenie High. I would expect snow showers from this immediately away from coasts and to higher ground as a minimum. 

The ECM follows similar trends, maybe not as dramatic but nonethe less same idea and origin. 

Now look at the ensembles for my area , yes we are in the north but we are right under the influence of the gulf and Jetstream...... And it gone on holiday.  

 

If anything the GFs and GEFS want to head back to the factory reset button of mild Atlantic late in the runs.   However look at these . Mild outliers in F1 well above the mean and lots of runs much colder! 

Last time I saw a run like that for actual Christmas day was 1995! No thankyou , we had cold turkey because of a powercut due to ice and -24c in Braemar. 

 

That leads me onto the teleconnections 

The AO and NAO heading very slowly back to neutral. That is not the same thing as positive.  And certain no medium term indication of a return to milder Atlantic driven weather other than for Monday. 

 

That negative  AO for December is quite incredible. It's going to take a while, if at all for the polar Vortex to recover.

 

Any recovery doesn't last long. I've not idea what the prospects are for a SSW but look at the highs constantly chipping away at it... Big wavy wobbly unstable , weakened. 

 

So I'm not convinced it isn't all over , indeed we aren't playing football,  so let's just watch these fascinating charts and runs play out. 

The game has just literally started. Interesting times are afoot! 

 

 

 

 

[Summer Sun]

A potentially historic cold with frigid air mass is set to plunge millions in America and Canada into a big freeze just days before Christmas
 

Christmas Week Forecast: A Frigid Arctic Outbreak with the Coldest Airmass of the Winter Season and a Major Winter Storm heads for the United States

WWW.SEVERE-WEATHER.EU

---

A historic Arctic cold will send millions across the United States and Canada into deep freeze. New winter storm is forecast around Christmas.

 

[Summer8906]

As predicted the rain and gloom has arrived here.

However not (yet) as bad as it could be, as at least it's still coldish (so at least 'feels' wintry and 'seasonal') and also there's no wind.

The real rubbish will be when the Tm grot arrives, presumably later.

I could tolerate this sort of day, even on a regular basis, quite well if only we got some cold, bright NW-lies behind the frontal systems! Hence, Jan 2015 was a month I rated relatively highly.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Summer8906

[cheese]

13 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

I'm inclined to agree to an extent, as I am sure I would much prefer the Swedish climate to that of the UK.... but that was before I just looked up Stockholm's sunset today. 2.46pm?!? Significantly earlier than even Reykjavik: Sweden is clearly in the wrong time zone.

 

And Scandinavia certainly doesn’t have sunny winters - they’re very dark. 

Scandinavian summers are quite sunny though. 

Edited December 18, 2022 by cheese

[Summer8906]

5 minutes ago, cheese said:

And Scandinavia certainly doesn’t have sunny winters - they’re very dark. 

Is that right? I'd guess that somewhere like Stockholm would be pretty sunny during its extremely limited daylight, as it's in the rain-shadow of the Scandinavian mountains so even SW-lies wouldn't be so gloomy.

But pre-3pm sunsets would be a definite no-no for me. Nonetheless I'd imagine that for most of the year (let's say March to October) it would be more agreeable than the UK.

I think some time ago, the European capitals were rated by sunshine levels in summer and winter. Can't remember the results, but I'd guess Stockholm would have a significantly higher percentage of theoretical maximum sunshine than London in the winter. I'd have guessed the really gloomy capitals (in no particular order) would include Reykjavik, Dublin, Oslo, London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, as all are fairly exposed to SW-lies - but I do seem to remember Berlin was unexpectedly cloudy in winter, surprising for somewhere far downwind of the Atlantic.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Summer8906

[BarometerCat]

Sometimes, we look for the impossible.  Those idea sets of synoptics that will produce wintery nirvana, Northerlies, easterlies. !947/62 or 2010 etc..  I like to look at what we have, glass half full and that.

Mild incursions ahead yes, but not warm or endless SW.  

Christmas Day GFS 6z,  not that mild..  then a couple of colder days follow. (If it verifies)

ECM similar period no as nice

UKMO - bit better.

 

Its not trending all out mild is my point. still a lot to look out for (keeping my expectations in check though..) 

 

 

 

[Bradley in Kent]

Morning all, 

So here the dreaded drip has begun. It's always a sad time when snow melts however it is of course a natural comedown after a very enjoyable period of weather. 

It's been a decent cold spell, a few hard frosts primed the ground before a surprisingly heavy fall of snow (15cm) which has survived the week no problem bar south facing roofs. Calm water bodies are frozen and even the river has ice albeit patchy. 

As of now we're at 0° for December so far which is good going. 

The last third of December is looking very uncertain but it does look like the Atlantic will be calling the shots. Perhaps a couple of northerly blasts the the years out!

(Images courtesy of Weather Underground)

[Summer8906]

34 minutes ago, Barometer Cat said:

Sometimes, we look for the impossible.  Those idea sets of synoptics that will produce wintery nirvana, Northerlies, easterlies. !947/62 or 2010 etc..  I like to look at what we have, glass half full and that.

Mild incursions ahead yes, but not warm or endless SW.  

Christmas Day GFS 6z,  not that mild..  then a couple of colder days follow. (If it verifies)

ECM similar period no as nice

UKMO - bit better.

 

Its not trending all out mild is my point. still a lot to look out for (keeping my expectations in check though..) 

 

 

 

I suspect it could be very mild in the south though; only GFS shows something not mild for the south out of those three.
However I do have hope that persistent northerly to the NW will wind up over here at some point - it isn't a simple zonal as you say, it's just the southern UK in particular is in almost the worst possible place in this setup. Scotland and much of the continent will be enjoying better weather, one way or another (either colder or drier), I suspect.

I guess that is what opens potential opportunities to more sustained colder weather come early January.

It's also likely true that opinions of the remainder of the month will be very different depending on whether you're in Scotland or southern England.

Always seems to be the way these days that Scotland gets all the luck. Gone is the old theory "the SE is coldest in winter because it's nearest the continental influence", which can happen with a high just to our east feeding in SE winds across the south while Scotland has full on zonality.

While I certainly wouldn't want to live in Scotland during spring, summer or even autumn, I do wonder whether I would prefer the winters up there. Could be very stormy at times, yes, but at least they get more regular polar outbreaks and snow. Southern England just seems to be one near-continuous Tm/rPm humid gloomfest, unless we get lucky (as we did these past three weeks).

Edited December 18, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

Seriously close to a day-darkness event now. Light level more like approaching 1600 than the middle of the day. Just needs to get a little bit darker and the street lights will be coming on!

A perfect "storm" of endless SW-lies and the solstice right in the middle of the week means this will doubtless be one of the poorest weeks on record for daylight down here in the south; only Wednesday - the solstice itself - seems to offer a chance of some relief. I recognise more northerly parts of the UK will see more in the way of polar outbreaks.

We can, by some measures, say that at least we'll get the worst week of winter over this week. (Obviously we might see damaging storms, for example, later, but for poor light levels, this week will certainly be the worst. Let's face it, synoptically and astronomically it literally can't be any worse...)

Edited December 18, 2022 by Summer8906

[MidnightSnow]

I really hate how much weather affects my mood  I know beggars can't be choosers in the UK... but I would've loved it if the cold spell we just had, happened two weeks later instead.

Could really do with some upgrades in the medium-long term. Seems like there's a little bit of hope at least. I think most of us coldies would sacrifice a week of this mild dross if there was something to look forward to after christmas.

[RhHh]

5 hours ago, Weather-history said:

Remember the days when you wanted to know the possiibilty of the weather so far ahead, you had to 

a) read a long range newspaper forecast at the start of the month or by some pundit such as Bill Foggitt

b) watch BBC Sunday lunchtime forecast or the BBC lunchtime Wednesday forecast

c) phone up some weather company who gave long range forecasts.

Sometimes I wish we were back to those days  

I used to look forward to the weather for farmers on the BBC Sunday lunchtime. Always detailed and reasonably accurate. Watched it today with Stav and it was pathetic, short on detail and incredibly vague. 

[ItNeverSnowsInWindsor]

24 minutes ago, RhHh said:

I used to look forward to the weather for farmers on the BBC Sunday lunchtime. Always detailed and reasonably accurate. Watched it today with Stav and it was pathetic, short on detail and incredibly vague. 

Just as well as the weather looks horrible and mild next week!