Moans, ramps and banter

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

Cloudy Autumn in Hampshire - It's never ending. Starting to hate living here tbh .

Do you think it's becoming cloudier where you are than previously? It definitely feels cloudier and more grey generally than when I was younger. But I'm at the point where I'm honestly not sure whether that's A) a result of "rose tinted goggles" of youth and childhood playing tricks on me, B) me just paying closer attention to the weather generally nowadays so I noticed how regularly grey/overcast it is, whereas before I didn't notice it, or C) it's statistically becoming duller throughout the year.

The last year has really made me question whether I can physically and mentally endure this climate long term. Yeah we get years like 2022 but they're massive outliers. My original plan was to split my time between Britain and Spain but Brexit has put pay to that. We'll see...

Edited February 16 by In Absence of True Seasons

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 In Absence of True Seasons Yes!! And definitely over the past year. I suspect a bit of your option B for me. But since last March it's horrific! I would love to spend time elsewhere too!

[That ECM]

It has been an interesting winter from an output watching perspective but on the whole from an imby view frustrating. Hey ho, it is what it is. I have little interest through the spring summer and autumn unless I’m going on holiday, so see you all in December to hunt again.

[Summer8906]

 SunnyG Neither to be honest, just someone who takes delight in nature. So as well as spring flowers I enjoy "proper" winters with frost and snow, and warm sunny summers. Basically I want the seasons to be "as they ought to be", and months of mild damp dull SW-lies is the perfect way to scupper that...

Edited February 16 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

1 hour ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Do you think it's becoming cloudier where you are than previously? It definitely feels cloudier and more grey generally than when I was younger. But I'm at the point where I'm honestly not sure whether that's A) a result of "rose tinted goggles" of youth and childhood playing tricks on me, B) me just paying closer attention to the weather generally nowadays so I noticed how regularly grey/overcast it is, whereas before I didn't notice it, or C) it's statistically becoming duller throughout the year.

The last year has really made me question whether I can physically and mentally endure this climate long term. Yeah we get years like 2022 but they're massive outliers. My original plan was to split my time between Britain and Spain but Brexit has put pay to that. We'll see...

From my perspective we seem to be getting more SW-lies and less NW-lies, which means more in the way of monotonously dull weather with temps varying relatively little throughout the year; I'm willing to bet that 300 days of the year here achieve maxima in the 10-19 range. The temps this week are not that much cooler than many July or August days, such is the mildness of the winter and the coolness (by day) of the summer. I'm sure the 90s and early 00s were much sunnier, and the 80s were sunnier in the winter months. I do think the stats suggest that July and August in particular are regularly below the long-term sunshine average.

Don't want to get into politics too much but it is "Sod's law" that it becoming more bureaucratic to emigrate has coincided with Britain losing something of its natural beauty, due to the drab late 2010s and 2020s climate. So in the 90s we had a better climate here and we had freedom of movement to many other countries. Now we have neither!

I realise we are a maritime climate in any case but we seem to be getting a more extreme version of a maritime climate in recent years. Even to achieve a 7C max in Jan and Feb seems a rarity.

Edited February 16 by Summer8906

[cheese]

Today was very pleasant - some sunshine, light winds, mild. Birds chirping. It really had that early spring vibe. 

Edited February 16 by cheese

[cheese]

 In Absence of True Seasons I think it was @reef who mentioned that average sunshine in England has increased over the past 30 years, but most of that increase has come in winter and spring - there have been many sunny winter months in recent years when you think about it. Last winter was very sunny for example. Spring has tended to be really sunny too.

Chances are your tolerance for the British climate is just decreasing as it’s always been very dull. As kids we just don’t really care about the weather at all. 

Edited February 16 by cheese

[Penguin16]

 cheese I believe the increase in sunshine in winter/spring is due to less pollution/smog compared to previous decades.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 cheese no sunshine ere

[trickydicky]

 Summer8906 I definitely agree that the tropical maritime airmass dominates now more than it used to. We seem to have reduced to two seasons with two weather types in each. Here anyway. Winter is either frosty and just as cold generally as frosty weather always was - in my lifetime anyway, or south westerly drear and very mild. I would say anything over 10 around here is very mild. Anything over 12 extremely mild. Those days used to be relatively uncommon. To the point where you would say to someone ‘its very mild today isn’t it?’. Now it is default and barely noteworthy. Summer is either similarly dreary and similarly mild or sunny and incredibly hot. 30c days used to be noteworthy now they are expected whenever the sun comes out between April and late October (slight exaggeration).

[raz.org.rain]

I wonder where people are seeing this signal for a cold March from because everything I'm seeing points towards the opposite.

[Arctic Hare]

WRT cloud/dullness, someone (can't remember who, sorry) pointed out that eg Jan this year had a decent sunshine total overall but that a very high proportion of the sunshine hours were concentrated in just a few days mid-month. So the number of reasonably sunny days was actually pretty poor.

Also, I see the consensus from the models at the moment is for yet more dull, wet weather. Which will mean flooding. Why can't that kind of forecast fail totally sometimes, instead of just the "cold nailed on" ones?!?

[Summer8906]

 raz.org.rain too early to tell but there seems to be an indication of a cooler spell in around a week's time and then a Greenland high in FI which might make it cold in the north, albeit just wet down here.

I'd be surprised to see it cold but the models aren't really suggesting the polar opposite of cold. Wet, perhaps.

My best guess at March would be a less extreme version of Feb (less mild, less wet) rather like April 2023 was a less extreme version of March and August 2023 was a less extreme version of July.

Edited February 16 by Summer8906

[East Lancs Rain]

9 hours ago, SunnyG said:

I'll believe it when I see it. My trust in official forecasts has dropped like a stone since last summer...

The Met Office has always been rubbish at long term forecasting, they predicted a “BBQ summer” in 2009 and while June was quite good, July 2009 was a washout… Then at the end of July they predicted August would be a washout as well but it didn’t turn out to be too bad (I think). 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202982/Met-Office-left-red-faced-Britains-forecast-barbecue-summer-turns-washout.html#:~:text=It was in April that,to confess its shortcomings yesterday.

Edited February 16 by East Lancs Rain

[raz.org.rain]

 SunnyG quite a few people insisting that a cold March is a possibility, they seemingly haven't learned from the performance of the models so far.

[Cheshire Freeze]

You have to laugh really, you just know what’s coming for March. Trough dropping into Europe and HP stretching somewhere between Greenland and Scandi

[SunnyG]

 raz.org.rain They never learn....

[WYorksWeather]

 raz.org.rain I think one of the biggest issues is people are just looking at the headline 500mb height and MSLP charts, and assuming that they will correlate to cold. But virtually everywhere is so mild at the moment that even the 'cold zonal' charts for next week are translating to average temperatures at the surface (or above average relative to older averages).

There just isn't much cold around, it's more like a typical mid to late March.

[raz.org.rain]

 SunnyG I'm still going for a SSW induced early heatwave (if it does happen and doesn't disappear from the models again)

[Frigid]

 Cheshire Freeze Wouldn't be surprised if March's CET came in below February. I mean.. it wouldn't be a tall order considering we're experiencing an exceptionally mild month.

[raz.org.rain]

 WYorksWeather oh yeah I mentioned the same thing elsewhere. There's simply no significant cold for us to tap into, it'll just deliver a somewhat bog standard March before the Atlantic fires up and blasts it back out.

[SunnyG]

 Summer8906 I am afraid those times have gone forever. Not that I miss the snow, but I could do without the constant rain...

[Daniel*]

34 minutes ago, raz.org.rain said:

quite a few people insisting that a cold March is a possibility, they seemingly haven't learned from the performance of the models so far.

Expecting the same thing again and again will only get you so far. An early final warming is gaining likelihood in early March, it doesn't bode well for a warm or settled March. Of course in spring the frequency of northerly and easterly winds are at their greatest.

[WYorksWeather]

 raz.org.rain I'm already beginning to wonder when we're going to get the first direct hit from a plume to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if we have several days above 20C at some point in March, though it's probably still less than a 50% chance of something as extreme as that. But it's probably more likely than a colder than average March, certainly on 1961-1990 which is now ridiculously rare. The expectation is probably one such month in each year now (and of course there's been none since December 2022, and we had a streak of over a year before that dating back to May 2021 (though there were three such months in that year - January, April and May).

I just hope that the current anomalies don't translate fully over to the summer. To be clear, I have no issue with a warm or even borderline hot summer with plenty of days well into the mid to high 20s (even low 30s if not too humid).

What I could really do without is too many days going well into the 30s, or night time temperatures above around 15C or so.

[raz.org.rain]

 WYorksWeather I'm getting the impression that we could be in for a pretty intense summer if things continue to go the way they're going. I'd imagine that +30° will be a very common occurrence. Whether or not it turns out to be dry remains to be seen, although I know some are confident in a hot and dry combination based on current analogs.

But yeah, it's looking like we've got the right conditions for a marathon of Spanish plumes this year. I'd imagine the models will start to flirt with the idea of a notably warm and dry spell over the next few weeks or so.