Moans, ramps and banter

[In Absence of True Seasons]

Ugh, turning into a properly grim day in my ends. En route to meet a friend for dinner and my hands are like ice, 10c 'mild' temp regardless. Classic example of the kind of British winter damp, rainy cold that when accompanied by wind is genuinely really chilly and seems to seep into everything regardless of layers. I find days like this to feel more cold than when it's sunny, still and only a few degrees above freezing tbh. 

[cheeky_monkey]

 In Absence of True Seasons sunny and -20c here today i would take that over 10c rain and wind

[HafrenLMP1]

I prefer cycling in cold, dry but sunny conditions......as opposed to supposedly 'mild', when it's wet & windy.......utterly miserable conditions.

[SunSean]

Since I first started being interested in weather, this is honestly, for my area, the most testing, most boring, most depressing pattern of weather to be stuck in that I have ever experienced. Since March 2023, Unrelenting, persistent & never ending grey sky, unapologetic & forever looping bands of rain, month after month, saturating the ground like a bowl of cereal left submerged in milk.

Late May & June was like a chorus of angels in a void of nothingness, the 1st half of September was a euphoric wave of paradise rippling on the white sand of a desert island before a tsunami pulls everything back under and into the darkness. A couple of fleeting breaks from the pattern...the pattern that never ends.

Add to this, yet another late season Sudden Spring Wrecker (SSW) for the 2nd year in a row that will no doubt strangle the life out of another Spring like a 50 foot python crushing it's prey, it is looking bleak.

The end in sight from the death grip of a weather pattern so dreadful, so abysmal, so utterly Unrelenting is still about as far away as the Voyager 2 space probe.

The forecast continues with exactly the same cloudy & wet conditions that have barrelled into us, like a forever perpetuating pendulum of hopelessness. 

And now....another SSW....

Good evening folks!

Edited February 28 by SunSean

[raz.org.rain]

 SunSean I still reckon an SSW could deliver some early warmth for us.

[baddie]

 SunSean If the winds are Easterly and NOT a North Sea one, I will love the SSW.

Perhaps first half October, late-November and mid-January were decent breaks too

Edited February 28 by baddie

[SunSean]

 raz.org.rain But would it be sunny warmth or cloudy & wet warmth? Really craving some sunshine.

@baddie Would Easterly winds give us sunshine?

I don't know much about SSW's other than that the last few we've had have totally wrecked my favourite season- Spring

They fill me with dread as they seem to be like gambling your months (or seasons in this case) wages on the roulette

[baddie]

 SunSean You can get Easterlies like in March 2012, 2020 and 2022 which brought us lovely sunny weather, but sometimes you get North Sea clag like March 2006 and 2013 etc

Edited February 28 by baddie

[raz.org.rain]

2 minutes ago, SunSean said:

I don't know much about SSW's other than that the last few we've had have totally wrecked my favourite season- Spring

I can't remember who said it now but it was mentioned on this forum recently, supposedly SSWs have historically given us warmer weather more often than they've given us colder weather.

I'd like to think that if we end up on the "warm" side of the jet, it'll be dry and sunny. Those Azores highs are really pushing towards our location and it would seem that Eastern Europe is the path of least resistance for cold displacement.

[Metwatch]

7 minutes ago, SunSean said:

But would it be sunny warmth or cloudy & wet warmth? Really craving some sunshine.

@baddie Would Easterly winds give us sunshine?

I think this from the ECM mid next week has potential to be quite sunny but difficult to say.

 

I remember February 2021 ending amazingly sunny overhead high pressure, 11-12C by day, but as soon as March rolled in, low cloud spread in like there's no tomorrow for many as winds picked up and veered more south easterly:

Edited February 28 by Metwatch

[baddie]

 raz.org.rain All I beg for is dry. Washout conditions persisting after the equinox would be a p**stake

Edited February 28 by baddie

[SunSean]

 baddie A March 2012/2020/2022 would be just the tonic

@raz.org.rain Hopefully our luck will finally change & we will be on the better side of the SSW. Couldn't imagine having another March like last year

@Metwatch Yeah I remember that end to February, was very nice

Seems like such a rare occasion lately that we have more than 1 day in a row of sunshine. Had a nice spell of sunshine in January but the sunsets were so early back then. Before that, we'd have to go back to early October.

[raz.org.rain]

Yeah at this point I'm after a March 2020 repeat, just done with the constant rain and cold now. Just want some usable warmth and sun.

[baddie]

3 minutes ago, SunSean said:

Hopefully our luck will finally change & we will be on the better side of the SSW. Couldn't imagine having another March like last year

At the moment, I see shades of March 2016 (Cold and wet start, Dry middle). I would take that any day over 2023.

As for sunshine, maybe we might manage about 3 or 4 together in March

Edited February 28 by baddie

[B87]

Hopefully spring 2024 doesn't get ruined like last spring did. Even the sunny days were still chilly in the shade when there was a breeze, even in early May. That shouldn't be the case.

It feels like we have had lots of record breaking dull Marches in recent years, so I hope we get a 2012 style month with 200 hours of sun.

Spring 2016 was pretty horrible from memory. March and April were chilly that year. May was alright but wet, and then we had one of the worst Junes of all time.

Edited February 28 by B87

[Alderc 2.0]

 B87  as much as I’m desperate for sun I’d forego a March 2012 if it was a guarantee we didn’t end up with a summer like 2012! 

[B87]

 Alderc 2.0 after the last 9 months being the 2nd time in history that all have seen 50mm+ rainfall, I'll be happy for the next 7 months to be arid. March 2012, April 2011, May 2020, June 2018, July 2022, August 1995, September 2003 would be ideal! That would give a Mar-Sep rainfall total of 37.3mm!

Edited February 28 by B87

[SunSean]

 B87 If we got a run of months like that then I would spontaneously combust in an explosion of euphoria

[raz.org.rain]

 B87 2024 has a high potential to be an absolute classic of a year, just hoping things go right.

[WYorksWeather]

Problem really is that the current pattern isn't going to please anyone. If you're looking for a late cold spell, not much hope there. There's also not a strong trend yet for an early mild spell. And because of the climatological averages in March, which favour cool but not overly cold weather, it's quite difficult. A little milder than average is still not warm enough to feel properly spring-like. A little colder than average won't bring snow for most.

The minimum for anything properly spring-like is probably 15C and sunny, and obviously cold fans need night-time temperatures at least below 0C for much chance of any snow. Both those conditions are quite hard to achieve in March.

[B87]

 WYorksWeather 15c and sunny isn't that rare for the 2nd half of March.

[BlueSkies_do_I_see]

So we have an extra bonus day of winter to look forward to (I say that through gritted teeth as a person who looks forward to spring after September ends..)

Then onto March. My father used to tell me it was the month that comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Though that was his memories growing up thru the 1950s and 1960s, the latter of which was a cold decade. Probably not to much these days. 

So what does count as a mild day in early and late March respectively?

Edited February 28 by BlueSkies_do_I_see

[stainesbloke]

The last day of winter has dawned mild, cloudy and it’s drizzling in west London. How unusual lol

[knocker]

I notice that over in the mod. thread a relative newcomer to the thread has made the rhetorical comment , "Seriously how can any model promoting cold weather now be a good thing". There is of course no intelligent answer to this.

[Matty88]

 knocker  well he has a point - who wants a cold spring?!