I'm 50 on Sunday  

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

 Depressing for us coldies, but the evidence was there from the 90s - comparing stats and obs from my parents and grand-parents, but the Ostriches and the deniers - (how much were they paid by Saudi Arabia and Russia), and the disrupters, (as per the film “The Trick”) served to distract the worlds nations politicians and policy makers from acting on the inconvenient truth. The cost to us is the prospect of drought, biodiversity crisis, children who never grow up to know the beauty and magic of a snow day, snow balls, snow men or a white Christmas. That is a major cultural shift and massive loss of what makes up a part of our culture, history and Britishness. We pin our hopes now on the Gulf Stream shut down, just to take us back to the 90s for a decade.

Originally Posted by: BJBlake 

The 90s had cold Winters? 😂

As for children not knowing snow I think there was a climate 'scientist' that said around 2007 time that basically it would never be properly cold again in the UK and then we all know what happened 2009 -2013.

Let's keep things in perspective as it seems every winter we get with little snow (which certainly wasn't the case last year) we get these ridiculous comments where people say it will never snow again in the UK.

Just look at what's happening in Greece at the moment if you truly believe it can't ever snow again in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Taylor1740 

The 90s had cold Winters? 😂

As for children not knowing snow I think there was a climate 'scientist' that said around 2007 time that basically it would never be properly cold again in the UK and then we all know what happened 2009 -2013.

Let's keep things in perspective as it seems every winter we get with little snow (which certainly wasn't the case last year) we get these ridiculous comments where people say it will never snow again in the UK.

Just look at what's happening in Greece at the moment if you truly believe it can't ever snow again in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Taylor1740 

Did I say, it would never snow again? No. But the frequency will be less and less with each decade. My Father leaned to ice skate on ponds on his dads farm in Sussex, near the coast. He hadn’t seen a stoat turn white in winter once the 60s were past. Can you imagine any if that happening today. Snow was an expected norm, but now it is an exception and a phenomenon. That has happened in one short life time, (2 generations). In the Thames Valley, south west London, my god daughter was 9 years old before she saw a flake of snow, born in 1993. That kind of thing will get more common. That, I am sorry to say, is a sad fact. I wish it were not so. Of course - given ideal Synoptics, snow will happen, but the Synoptics being right, with enough cold air to advect here, is getting rarer. Some of this is climate change, and some synoptic frequency change. We get less Scandi-highs.

Originally Posted by: BJBlake 

Did I say, it would never snow again? No. But the frequency will be less and less with each decade. My Father leaned to ice skate on ponds on his dads farm in Sussex, near the coast. He hadn’t seen a stoat turn white in winter once the 60s were past. Can you imagine any if that happening today. Snow was an expected norm, but now it is an exception and a phenomenon. That has happened in one short life time, (2 generations). In the Thames Valley, south west London, my god daughter was 9 years old before she saw a flake of snow, born in 1993. That kind of thing will get more common. That, I am sorry to say, is a sad fact. I wish it were not so. Of course - given ideal Synoptics, snow will happen, but the Synoptics being right, with enough cold air to advect here, is getting rarer. Some of this is climate change, and some synoptic frequency change. We get less Scandi-highs.

Originally Posted by: BJBlake 

I don't want to turn this into a climate change discussion for obvious reasons, I would say that your statement preceding the sentence I have bolded is your opinion/prediction, not a fact.

Just like when Ian Brown told us circa 15 years ago that as far as he was concerned, major cold winter spells in this country were pretty well consigned to the history books. He was proved to be wrong about that, at least for a few years at the turn of the 2000s into the 2010s, and again in early 2018. Even last winter, while never particularly severe, wasn't short of cold weather, at least as far as my neck of the woods was concerned.

Originally Posted by: David M Porter 

December. The record for the warmest News Eve (31st) was set this year, at Great Yarmouth. Recorded then as 60 ºF, this could mean anything between 15.3 and 15.8 ºC.

That was 1901 .................I wonder if they ever thought they would see snow again 

February. Very mild (7.1C CET - the mildest of the century before 1990), with westerly winds throughout the month, but stormy, particularly in the north. 14C was recorded at Wick on the 10th, and 16C in London on the 20th. Probably the most spectacular dry dustfall of this century affected much of England and Wales on February 21. There was a severe gale on the 27th, causing widespread damage and deaths across the north of England, with a gust of 92 mph.

November. Mild and generally dry.

December. Mild and dull.

1903 

December. A very mild and wet first half. There were four days of continuous rain in parts of the south early in the month: for example, 170 mm of rain fell between the 4th and the 10th in parts of Devon. One and a half inches of rain fell at Nottingham on the 1st. There was a violent westerly gale in southern England on the 16th. The equal record highest maximum for Christmas Eve was set this month, with 15.6C at locations in North Wales.

1910

November. Wet and unsettled. There as a severe gale on the night of the 4-5th, with gusts of 70 mph reported from Blackpool. The gale coincided with a high tide, causing flooding in the Clyde. Many trees were blown over in Scotland. More than 50 mm of rain fell in the Western Highlands, and 93 mm at Seathwaite (Cumbria).

December. Unsettled, wet, and mild.

1911

January. Very warm (7.3C CET), and largely mild and wet - the last wet month for a while. It reached 15.6C (60F) at Llandudno on the 4th and 14.4C (58F) at London on the 9th. There was a severe gale across the night of the 17th and into the 18th.

February. Very mild and exceptionally dry: the driest of the twentieth century in England and Wales. It was also fairly sunny, and with generally light winds there was some fog. 17C recorded in parts of the SE on the 24th.

1921

January. There was a warm January day in London (approximately 16.0C on the 9th at Kensington). It was a very wet month.

February. Mainly mild with S and SW winds. 17C was recorded in Lincoln and Colwyn Bay on the 25th.

1922

My point being the UK has been through cycles of mild periods and cold ones  as well .............our time will come again , I could have posted many more examples but the above proves very mild weather hit our shores even back in the good old days 

Originally Posted by: Gooner 

Thought I would comment on the models, sorry off it's off topic😁😁

Whilst the general consensus seems to be a more unsettled theme going forwards with alternating mild and colder interludes (the latter especially north of course), the GEFS has a fair few members at least wanting to bring HP back after Feb 7th so I would not bet against this judging by the track record of this winter so far.

Originally Posted by: UncleAlbert 

The 90s had cold Winters? 😂

As for children not knowing snow I think there was a climate 'scientist' that said around 2007 time that basically it would never be properly cold again in the UK and then we all know what happened 2009 -2013.

Let's keep things in perspective as it seems every winter we get with little snow (which certainly wasn't the case last year) we get these ridiculous comments where people say it will never snow again in the UK.

Just look at what's happening in Greece at the moment if you truly believe it can't ever snow again in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Taylor1740 

Greece has often had more snow than the UK. Winter's can still bring large regional variations. There was zero snowfall here last year and except for the Beast (which was pretty much March) virtually none in the winter months since 2013. Even taking that into account, younger people's concept of a severe winter has been drastically diluted this century. You can make a strong case for December 2009-10 being an exceptionally cold month but in some regions there was little snow and it barely lasted a month. 1950-1990 there were at least 10 winters here with far more snow than 2010. People are getting excited about 10cm of snow these days as even that is a one in ten year occurrence in formerly snowy areas like East Anglia.

Perhaps the time has come for older people like myself to wipe the second half of the 20th Century from our memory banks and think of memorable winters and cold in the context of this century only which would be a more realistic bench mark given climate change.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

January 2011 to Dec. 2021, eh? A pity the cut-off point isn't one month earlier. Because that was "a sobering slap in the face" if there ever was one.

 ... it was the second-coldest December in the narrower Central England Temperature (CET) record series which began in 1659, falling 0.1 °C short of the all-m record set in 1890.[1] Although data has never officially been compiled, December 2010 is thought to be colder than December 1890 over the United Kingdom as a whole, as Scotland was up to 2 °C warmer than England. Hence, it is thought to be the coldest December across the UK as a whole since before 1659.[2]

Originally Posted by: some faraway beach 

Yes, it was memorable - but clearly very much against the trend.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

I don't think this is going to be the mildest winter on record though is it, unless February turns out extremely warm.

I think people just need to put things in context a bit, I'm sure you will be able to find plenty of milder Winters and snowless winters even going back 100 years.

Sometimes our expectations of winter weather are unrealistic in the UK when it is not the norm to have deep snow and several sub zero days.

Originally Posted by: Taylor1740 

December. The record for the warmest News Eve (31st) was set this year, at Great Yarmouth. Recorded then as 60 ºF, this could mean anything between 15.3 and 15.8 ºC.

That was 1901 .................I wonder if they ever thought they would see snow again 

February. Very mild (7.1C CET - the mildest of the century before 1990), with westerly winds throughout the month, but stormy, particularly in the north. 14C was recorded at Wick on the 10th, and 16C in London on the 20th. Probably the most spectacular dry dustfall of this century affected much of England and Wales on February 21. There was a severe gale on the 27th, causing widespread damage and deaths across the north of England, with a gust of 92 mph.

November. Mild and generally dry.

December. Mild and dull.

1903 

December. A very mild and wet first half. There were four days of continuous rain in parts of the south early in the month: for example, 170 mm of rain fell between the 4th and the 10th in parts of Devon. One and a half inches of rain fell at Nottingham on the 1st. There was a violent westerly gale in southern England on the 16th. The equal record highest maximum for Christmas Eve was set this month, with 15.6C at locations in North Wales.

1910

November. Wet and unsettled. There as a severe gale on the night of the 4-5th, with gusts of 70 mph reported from Blackpool. The gale coincided with a high tide, causing flooding in the Clyde. Many trees were blown over in Scotland. More than 50 mm of rain fell in the Western Highlands, and 93 mm at Seathwaite (Cumbria).

December. Unsettled, wet, and mild.

1911

January. Very warm (7.3C CET), and largely mild and wet - the last wet month for a while. It reached 15.6C (60F) at Llandudno on the 4th and 14.4C (58F) at London on the 9th. There was a severe gale across the night of the 17th and into the 18th.

February. Very mild and exceptionally dry: the driest of the twentieth century in England and Wales. It was also fairly sunny, and with generally light winds there was some fog. 17C recorded in parts of the SE on the 24th.

1921

January. There was a warm January day in London (approximately 16.0C on the 9th at Kensington). It was a very wet month.

February. Mainly mild with S and SW winds. 17C was recorded in Lincoln and Colwyn Bay on the 25th.

1922

My point being the UK has been through cycles of mild periods and cold ones  as well .............our time will come again , I could have posted many more examples but the above proves very mild weather hit our shores even back in the good old days 

Originally Posted by: Gooner 

Extrapolating, there are likely to be none at all below the 1961-90 average in the decade from 2041-2050.

A sobering slap in the face about what’s ahead.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White