UK winters: are they getting colder?

[Wade]

5 hours ago, Snowandrocks said:

The last few years have actually been pretty decent for snowfall and low temperatures here in Aberdeenshire, I think we've had at least one lengthy spell each winter with deep (>20cm) snow each winter and temperatures below minus 10 (~ minus 20 on a few occasions) for several years now. 

That's absolutely not to say that the climate isn't warming on average but do remember that lack of snow in Southern England isn't necessarily representative of elsewhere in the UK and that weather events will still happen against the overall warming trend. 

Well what you have to think about is you live on the east coast of northern Scotland, so it is blatantly clear you will get at least one very good snow event per year, for the vast majority of the UK though (England in particular) a decent snow event is about a common as a flying crocodile these days.

[Norrance]

Scotland has had some decent Winter spells in the last few years and Aberdeenshire following quite a long poor spell has had good snowfalls in the last six years or so particularly from North Westerlies. The northern Highlands too have done well.

However I am one of those that keeps records of mountain snows and there the situation tells a different story.The only really decent year for skiing recently was 2021 and unfortunately that coincided with lockdown.

For those that monitor snow patches and if they survive through to the next winter sadly the records tell a rather sad story. Below are the years that the snow all melted. As you can see the snow all melted more than twice as often since 2000 than it had since they started keeping records way back in the 1700s. (Though the records before the late 1800s cannot be 100% reliable that period was significantly colder than what we are used to now.

You can add last year 2923 to the list below as the last patch went by mid September.

"According to records, it previously melted fully in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2021 and now 2022. Before 1933, it is thought to have last melted completely in the 1700s"

So overall for the Highlands it has definitely got warmer.

Edited January 17 by Norrance

[LetItSnow!]

I wish they were

[WYorksWeather]

In relation to points above about Scotland etc., one of the interesting things is that for some extremely cold locations, an increase in temperature will initially increase the probability of snow falling, as there is more moisture available. It's only once the climate warms enough that this effect is outweighed by the increasing number of days when precipitation falls as rain, that the overall effect of increased temperature on snowfall turns negative.

[SunnyG]

The question should perhaps be: in what part(s) of the UK are winters getting colder? Because here in the SE they certainly aren't.

Edited January 17 by SunnyG

[LetItSnow!]

I thought I'd look at the decadal progression of winter temperatures throughout Europe to see how the trends look. The anomalies are based off the most recent decade, so the 1960s are set against the winters of the 1950s, the winters of the 1970s set against the winters of the 1960s etc.

 1960s

We can see a big reduction in temperature across most of northern and western Europe compared to the winters of the 1950s, though we were less impacted than Scandinavia. Meanwhile into Africa winters got a lot warmer. This is probably because southerly tracking jet streams promoted low pressure and warmer winds from the mid latitutes there.

 1970s

The trend completely reverses in the 1970s, though this is compared to the cold 1960s so the trend is more pronounced. This isn't surprising as several winters of the 1970s are notoriously mild even by today's standards.

 1980s

No surprise here than the trend is mostly colder, though interestingly Scotland actually continued to get warmer. This could be from the blocked nature of many of the 1980s winters disproportionately effecting the south. Look at the extensive warming into Russia and Asia. Perhaps the first signs of global warming.

 1990s

No surprise here, though it appears there was a reduction in temperatures overall into Russia and south-east Europe. This implies that while global temperature increase played a part, I think natural variability also played a part too. Perhaps the winters of the 1990s were always going to be mild, somewhat like the 1970s. The intense warming over Scandinavia is extreme and must have been a shock to them.

 2000s

Little change for us but around us the warming continued. To our south though it appears winters had a slight decline. This backs up memories of cold spells across the continent that missed us were memorable for countries like France, Spain, Greece etc. 2002, 2005 and 2006 are examples of this I think.

 2010s

Actually interesting! Now, the winters from 2010 to 2013 are doing quite a bit of heavy lifting here but actually winters tended to get a little colder in the 2010s overall. Bear in mind, this is compared to the 2000s and not the overall 20th century average. There was quite a substantial decrease across Scandinavia and Russia whereas the slight reduction to our south reversed.

The next is only preliminary and only encompasses the couple winters this decade so far but as the original thread asked, have our recent winters seen a cooling trend?

 2020-2023

No. Bear in mind, this includes the cold winters from 2010 to 2013, but even still, virtually everywhere has seen overall large increases in winter temperature anomalies this decade so far, apart from Iceland. This makes sense as I always notice Iceland having below normal anomalies on Gavin's weather forecasts! Now this trend may moderate, we've got 5 years left of the decade to go and colder winters could once again come in a cluster like in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but so far, winter temperatures have been on the uptick and by a concerning margin especially considering the anomaly is against the 2010-2019 average! I do think this trend will moderate but by how much is unknown. If we continue to see temperatures hover around 1-2C above the global mean then winter may start to fade from memory across parts of Europe. Or a shift in weather patterns or a volcano or scientific experiment gone wrong could see a moderation of the anomaly. Fascinating yet scary, sobering times to be a weather enthusiast.

 

Edited January 18 by LetItSnow!
Wording changed

[In Absence of True Seasons]

16 hours ago, Norrance said:

Scotland has had some decent Winter spells in the last few years and Aberdeenshire following quite a long poor spell has had good snowfalls in the last six years or so particularly from North Westerlies. The northern Highlands too have done well.

However I am one of those that keeps records of mountain snows and there the situation tells a different story.The only really decent year for skiing recently was 2021 and unfortunately that coincided with lockdown.

For those that monitor snow patches and if they survive through to the next winter sadly the records tell a rather sad story. Below are the years that the snow all melted. As you can see the snow all melted more than twice as often since 2000 than it had since they started keeping records way back in the 1700s. (Though the records before the late 1800s cannot be 100% reliable that period was significantly colder than what we are used to now.

You can add last year 2923 to the list below as the last patch went by mid September.

"According to records, it previously melted fully in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2021 and now 2022. Before 1933, it is thought to have last melted completely in the 1700s"

So overall for the Highlands it has definitely got warmer.

That's interesting.

Do you think this is a result of hotter temps occurring between April and Sept, or fewer colder spells between Oct and March? Or bit of both? I was in the Cairngorms in July 2020 and the summit of Ben Macdui and surrounding peaks had no snow, however, that Spring 2020 was incredibly warm and sunny for a very prolonged period, so perhaps that was why...

Yes, the 1700-1800s were certainly colder as standard. It was known as a 'little ice age'. Not just colder than modern years, but colder than the decades / centuries preceding it, which including the Medieval Warm Period.

[reef]

SImply, no they're not. Winter here from 1980 to present from my own data:

About a 1.2C increase on the trend. Pretty similar to the warming national / globally.

And lying snow, which has been particularly dire in the last decade. There are the same number of winters with 0 or 1 snow lying at 0900 days pre-2013 as after 2013:

 

[Norrance]

11 hours ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

That's interesting.

Do you think this is a result of hotter temps occurring between April and Sept, or fewer colder spells between Oct and March? Or bit of both? I was in the Cairngorms in July 2020 and the summit of Ben Macdui and surrounding peaks had no snow, however, that Spring 2020 was incredibly warm and sunny for a very prolonged period, so perhaps that was why...

Yes, the 1700-1800s were certainly colder as standard. It was known as a 'little ice age'. Not just colder than modern years, but colder than the decades / centuries preceding it, which including the Medieval Warm Period.

It's a bit of both. For snow to last through you need it to be cold enough to drift on westerly winds so that the snow builds up in the NE facing corries protected from the sun. This hasn't happened much recently and any decent snowfalls have come from the North or East so ending up on slopes exposed to the sun and the warm winds and rain. The warmer summers also haven't helped. The last good year for snow patches was 2015 when 73 patches survived to the next winter which was the most I think since 1994. There were frequent wet westerly winds that winter and Spring (cold Spring) and though the average temp over the winter was 1C above average that is cold enough for snow on the higher slopes.
Ironically the next winter the average temperature was the same but because of big swings any snow that built up quickly thawed and none survived.

edit. Ironically next week from Saturday looks like adding a lot of snow to the right places despite it being a lot milder than this week.

Edited January 18 by Norrance

[raz.org.rain]

5 hours ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

That's interesting.

Do you think this is a result of hotter temps occurring between April and Sept, or fewer colder spells between Oct and March? Or bit of both? I was in the Cairngorms in July 2020 and the summit of Ben Macdui and surrounding peaks had no snow, however, that Spring 2020 was incredibly warm and sunny for a very prolonged period, so perhaps that was why...

Yes, the 1700-1800s were certainly colder as standard. It was known as a 'little ice age'. Not just colder than modern years, but colder than the decades / centuries preceding it, which including the Medieval Warm Period.

The Little Ice Age is a curious period because, as far as I know, a few of our warmest CET averages come from that period. My favourite example is 1666; "as Samuel Pepys wrote in his diaries, 1666 was one of the hottest and driest on record, with 7 June being, according to Pepys, “the hottest day that I have ever felt in my life”. July and August brought no relief to a drought that had begun the previous winter". These hot and dry conditions created the cinder box that ended with the Great Fire of London.

[Bradley in Kent]

5 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

The Little Ice Age is a curious period because, as far as I know, a few of our warmest CET averages come from that period. My favourite example is 1666; "as Samuel Pepys wrote in his diaries, 1666 was one of the hottest and driest on record, with 7 June being, according to Pepys, “the hottest day that I have ever felt in my life”. July and August brought no relief to a drought that had begun the previous winter". These hot and dry conditions created the cinder box that ended with the Great Fire of London.

Hello there,

I would say that the 1600 - 1800 period saw a lot of blocking and correspondingly a quieter Atlantic. I can imagine loads of high pressure around the UK or lots of Easterly and Southeasterly winds which as we know bring cold weather in winter and hot weather in the summer. Our climate would've been a lot more continental in that period with less zonality, much more similar to Northeast US. More recent comparisons will be 2022, 2018 and 2010.

In the last 200 years, the Atlantic has increased its influence on UK climate especially with Autumn and Winter. I think this trend will continue in decades to come but we will continue to get 2018 BTFE style events which need A LOT of warming to dissappear. 

[Methuselah]

23 minutes ago, Bradley in Kent said:

Hello there,

I would say that the 1600 - 1800 period saw a lot of blocking and correspondingly a quieter Atlantic. I can imagine loads of high pressure around the UK or lots of Easterly and Southeasterly winds which as we know bring cold weather in winter and hot weather in the summer. Our climate would've been a lot more continental in that period with less zonality, much more similar to Northeast US. More recent comparisons will be 2022, 2018 and 2010.

In the last 200 years, the Atlantic has increased its influence on UK climate especially with Autumn and Winter. I think this trend will continue in decades to come but we will continue to get 2018 BTFE style events which need A LOT of warming to disappear. 

Any archive GFS/ECM charts for that? 

[LetItSnow!]

9 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Any archive GFS/ECM charts for that? 

I think the C.E.T. series and the reports of bloody freezing cold winters do support the idea that the Atlantic didn't quite have the ultimate vice like grip on winter like it does today! 

It's actually interesting looking at the (rather crude) reanalysis charts for the late 19th century and even the early 20th century. I do put some of it down to less precision due to more crude data but weather patterns seemed to be much different than today and not just in the obvious way. The Atlantic would often just come to a halt and blocking to our east could get going a lot easier. Similarly in summer low pressure systems seemed to have a much easier time disrupting highs and it was quite common for lows to divebomb on a NW-SE trajectory and with quite some vigour to. I feel like you don't see that as much nowadays. I'm no scientist but it goes to show that even the tiniest changes in the atmosphere can have a knock on effect to how weather patterns develop. It's not just that the same pattern in 1824 will bring different temperatures, even conditions than 2024 (higher tendency for frost, fog, mild looking ridges that were actually cold and murky that would be bright today) but that the actual patterns seem to just work a little differently. How scientifically put of me 

Lucky they don't have me write scientific papers or it would be "Telecommunications" written 300 times on one page and nothing else.

Such a shame we'll never be able to see the synoptics of the 1690s.

Edited January 18 by LetItSnow!

[Bradley in Kent]

27 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Any archive GFS/ECM charts for that? 

The only data I have to hand is this CET time series grouped by season. All seasons have warmed but winter has sped up the fastest. It only goes to 2012 unfortunately but let's face it that trend has kept face in the last 12 years.

Still, the world goes through cycles, some spanning millenia, some every decade (ha, obviously every 24hrs) and we'll still get snow. Because we've lost so much cold and snow its now central Europe seeing rapid loss now the Atlantic invasion has now reached further into the continent. 

[Derecho]

34 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

I think the C.E.T. series and the reports of bloody freezing cold winters do support the idea that the Atlantic didn't quite have the ultimate vice like grip on winter like it does today! 

It's actually interesting looking at the (rather crude) reanalysis charts for the late 19th century and even the early 20th century. I do put some of it down to less precision due to more crude data but weather patterns seemed to be much different than today and not just in the obvious way. The Atlantic would often just come to a halt and blocking to our east could get going a lot easier. Similarly in summer low pressure systems seemed to have a much easier time disrupting highs and it was quite common for lows to divebomb on a NW-SE trajectory and with quite some vigour to. I feel like you don't see that as much nowadays. I'm no scientist but it goes to show that even the tiniest changes in the atmosphere can have a knock on effect to how weather patterns develop. It's not just that the same pattern in 1824 will bring different temperatures, even conditions than 2024 (higher tendency for frost, fog, mild looking ridges that were actually cold and murky that would be bright today) but that the actual patterns seem to just work a little differently. How scientifically put of me 

Lucky they don't have me write scientific papers or it would be "Telecommunications" written 300 times on one page and nothing else.

Such a shame we'll never be able to see the synoptics of the 1690s.

I'm working on atmospheric reconstructions going back on a daily basis over the NW Europe region going back to 1700 following on from a masters project I did some years ago. It's something I do to keep me occupied when I have downtime. It's a shame I can't do the research as a job as everything would move a lot quicker. The other issue is getting things published is a right pain so meaningful outreach would be difficult.

[raz.org.rain]

9 minutes ago, Bradley in Kent said:

The only data I have to hand is this CET time series grouped by season. All seasons have warmed but winter has sped up the fastest. It only goes to 2012 unfortunately but let's face it that trend has kept face in the last 12 years.

Still, the world goes through cycles, some spanning millenia, some every decade (ha, obviously every 24hrs) and we'll still get snow. Because we've lost so much cold and snow its now central Europe seeing rapid loss now the Atlantic invasion has now reached further into the continent. 

If I recall correctly, glacial coverage over Europe has been in decline for millennia, even preceding previous ice ages. It would appear as if, after progressive ice ages have passed, the amount of ice coverage in Europe has grown smaller with each interglacial period. Scandinavia at one time had considerable glacial coverage which has now vanished. The fact that Northern Europe was already under a giant continental ice sheet is purported to be one of the reasons why a theorised AMOC slowdown had such a drastic cooling trend during the Younger Dryas, according to core samples. Those ice sheets just expanded southwards with ease.

Edited January 18 by raz.org.rain

[LetItSnow!]

4 minutes ago, Derecho said:

I'm working on atmospheric reconstructions going back on a daily basis over the NW Europe region going back to 1700 following on from a masters project I did some years ago. It's something I do to keep me occupied when I have downtime. It's a shame I can't do the research as a job as everything would move a lot quicker. The other issue is getting things published is a right pain so meaningful outreach would be difficult.

That's amazing! When you do eventually publish the findings I will be the first to have a look. That's a big project to take on so props to you for that. 

[Derecho]

1 minute ago, LetItSnow! said:

That's amazing! When you do eventually publish the findings I will be the first to have a look. That's a big project to take on so props to you for that. 

Aye it's very interesting looking back over 300 years and seeing what features appear in the data. It was an idea that came back to me during lockdown but life is a lot busier now!

The other issue is the variables I'm using for reconstruction become less reliable before the mid 18th century but there is at least overlapping data sources that can solve that problem. There are limitations though reconstructions would work well for continental western Europe but less so for Iceland.

I do miss the research I did in my masters, I had pretty much free reign in what I did but progressing up through academia you can only work on the projects that get funding because at that point you don't want any more loans.

[SunnyG]

7 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

The Little Ice Age is a curious period because, as far as I know, a few of our warmest CET averages come from that period. My favourite example is 1666; "as Samuel Pepys wrote in his diaries, 1666 was one of the hottest and driest on record, with 7 June being, according to Pepys, “the hottest day that I have ever felt in my life”. July and August brought no relief to a drought that had begun the previous winter". These hot and dry conditions created the cinder box that ended with the Great Fire of London.

From  Pepys' and Evelyn's diaries it appears that the weather at the time was truly bizarre: from the frozen Thames to years without a real summer to the plague of caterpillars due to lack of rain... they had it all.

Edited January 18 by SunnyG

[Scorcher]

On 14/01/2024 at 12:14, Rob 79812010 said:

Not sure about getting colder. From 2009 to 2018 we had a 50 50 split of cold or mild winters. Prior to that we'd only had one cold winter in 15 years. Recent years trending mild again. The strange thing for where I live (lowland manchester), we have more years  now where we get snow. In 80's winters were often cold but otherthan 81, pretty snowless. 90's probably more snow events but milder. Same for 2000's. In last 7 years we've had snow in 5 of those years. Spectacular in 2018 and usual 2cm otherwise. My point I guess is, why is it snowing more. Beats me!!!! Most have been Irish sea snow showers which in fairness always were Manchesters friend. 78 and 2010 best examples. The classic sw depressions moving ne which are great for South, Midlands and Yorkshire, are rubbish for those living in these parts. Sorry, gone way off topic!!!

I don't think it is snowing more in Manchester. Unless someone has some statistics to prove it?

Snow still isn't common during winter. There have been some notable snowy spells in recent years but then also very long snowless periods.  Even in the winters of the late 90s/early 2000s we would still usually get a covering at some point.

[cheese]

I don't think winters are any snowier either. Even during mild winters we get a covering of snow at some point, there's nothing odd about that. Bearing in mind that a normal winter here used to have 10-15 days of lying snow, and very few winters in the past 25 years have managed that - 2009/10, 2010/11, 2012/13 and 2017/18 are probably the only ones.

2013/14 had no lying snow at all.

Edited January 18 by cheese

[Rob 79812010]

7 hours ago, Scorcher said:

I don't think it is snowing more in Manchester. Unless someone has some statistics to prove it?

Snow still isn't common during winter. There have been some notable snowy spells in recent years but then also very long snowless periods.  Even in the winters of the late 90s/early 2000s we would still usually get a covering at some point.

Yes, we do get a lot of snowless periods. 6 out of 7 years pretty good though. 2018 beast, 2019 think it was Jan, 2020 none, 2021 quite a few snowfalls and  pretty cold January, 2022 none but it had snowed in November, 2023 we had snow twice, 2024 last Tuesday. 

[Daniel*]

This graph I made is relevant meteorological winter mean temperature at Heathrow from winter 1948/49. It’s evident there was a step change in late 1980s, if we cherry pick last 10 years there’s been no real overall change. It’s clear winter 2015/16 was a very high point, indeed it fits with my anecdotal thoughts. 

[Daniel*]

7 hours ago, Rob 79812010 said:

Yes, we do get a lot of snowless periods. 6 out of 7 years pretty good though. 2018 beast, 2019 think it was Jan, 2020 none, 2021 quite a few snowfalls and  pretty cold January, 2022 none but it had snowed in November, 2023 we had snow twice, 2024 last Tuesday. 

Here in London Docklands I never had more than a dusting from early  March 2013 to late Feb 2018… 5 years. That is unprecedented in my lifetime. Recent years have been slightly better on snow front.

[Rob 79812010]

22 minutes ago, Daniel* said:

This graph I made is relevant meteorological winter mean temperature at Heathrow from winter 1948/49. It’s evident there was a step change in late 1980s, if we cherry pick last 10 years there’s been no real overall change. It’s clear winter 2015/16 was a very high point, indeed it fits with my anecdotal thoughts. 

Fascinating chart. So much to analyse. Interesting that 97 to 2009 only 2 below 91 to 2010 average. The next 12 years has 6 below. Of course, I'm picking one scenario that could suggest a slight move to colder but I am biased!!!!