At least you live in an area which can get snow in April. Hasn't happened here since 1984...

(Frustratingly a few miles inland on the mainland it can and does happen, maybe once a decade if that, but even then it's pretty rare.)

As for this winter, it's one of the worst I've ever seen in terms of seasonality... nothing lower than -2.9C and, of course, not even a hint of a flake of sleet, let alone snow. The only plus point is a lack of very windy conditions, my least favourite weather type.

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As this is the moaning thread, it seems like a good place to discuss least favourite weather types. Mine is winter hail. Cold & unpleasant and usually driven on by a nasty blustery wind. Never larger than small pea sized it can briefly turn the ground white but soon melts into a slushy mess. Can most certainly do without that!

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That’s it’s. The strengthening PV has destroyed any confidence I have left in this ‘winter’. It’s over for us in the south at least.

We really do live in the worst climate in the world. We’re always in halfway house nothingness territory.

Despite the often favourable signals leading into winter. This will go now as one of the worst, if not the worst.

0/10 is my rating. 

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Cyprus reported lot of proper hailstorm and once in 1992 when I stay in Nicosia I see large clouds south of us stood there for long time, then find out on the news that10cm of hail depth recorded  on the area between Nicosia and Larnaca towns. This winter they had lot of hailstorm and up to marble sizes. 

Today was the first day I've noticed a bit of warmth in the sun, even in the breeze. It also seems brighter now than it was a few weeks ago.

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Felt the solar input into my famed west-facing hobby room this afternoon, and that was just via sunny bits in between cloudy periods.  

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Yup, it's a reminder that winter is almost over and spring is coming - and with it reverse SAD, such as I have. I can't stand those days where it's light when I get up, light when I go to bed and everyone's making a racket in the evening. The heat, the humidity, the oily sun cream goop to stop you burning to a crisp / getting cancer just by being outside... yuck, it's crummy just thinking of it.

Still, at least it's only 4 and a half months until the nights start drawing in!

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To be fair, I sympathise with that because I'm pretty sure I get winter SAD. How you feel now is similar to how I feel in mid-August when the lengthening nights become more apparent and you start to see those first signs of autumn.

It will be here before you know it!

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Jeez, you're really full of the joys of, erm, spring aren't you :)

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Even moreso considering we've just had an extended, darker autumn rather than anything resembling winter!

 

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Attacked by a bee in the kitchen this morning. 

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In February?  Must be very mild enough to stay alive this time of the year.

Think it had just woken up.

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There's something of a step change when it reaches 25 degrees above horizon during February - sooner further south you are.
Above that the atmosphere refracts significantly more energy to the ground.
You can check when it happens on this site. 21st Feb here. 9th Feb (e.g.) Portsmouth
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/

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Autumn never leaves us 

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Indeed. Showing my age but reminds me of that Justin Hayward song .....

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I once did a TWO version of that  I'll have to dig it out

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We are almost halfway through the month of February and yet we have only had 2 ground frosts during this month so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank and not even a single air frost all month.

In fact, this morning was actually the coldest night of this month so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank and that is despite the fact that the temperature dropped to no lower than 0.5°C there during the night.

Those are absolutely pathetic statistics which show how this so-called "winter" just seems to have got even worse over time, just when you would have thought that this wasn't even possible.

Roll on spring, is all I can say to that.

 

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Interesting site. 12th February for me. 

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Just the same banal, mind-numbing rot day after day. No variety, no interest, nothing 

 

A whole month now since it last dropped to -1C with 10.3 hours below freezing in that time, and this is supposed to be the peak of winter. It beyond surreal and just keeps getting worse and worse in defiance of any rational expectations. Worse than 2013/14, 2019/20, 1988/89. Worse than December 2015 which managed 11 hours below freezing. Worse than any winter I have ever had to suffer before.
 
February has been absolutely disgusting, and the worst month of a poisonous trio, with this relentless strong wind blowing constantly. Can't ever recall such a horrible unrelentingly windy month. Not even February 2020 was this bad nor February 2014 the most cyclonic month ever recorded.

Sun levels for the past month on a par with Cyprus with next to no rain, which shows how ridiculous this is, and doubly so that you can't enjoy a minute of it because of the horrific wind.

It's useless good-for-nothing vomit. Wrist slittingly awful crap. I've only managed one trip out on the bike in over a fortnight now. It's unbearable to be hit by this diabolical abhorrent strong wind every time you set foot outdoors. It's unbearable to be kept wake night after night by the vile howling and rattling.

It looked like today would bring the first fall, in a month, of over 2mm but no it just ended up another wretchedly windy day with overcast instead of sun. Horrible drizzle totalling 0.6mm 

There is a light festival on in the evenings in the city for the next few nights but what pleasure would there be in attending in these excruciating unpleasant conditions? None whatsoever.

Come summer it will be locked into the usual pattern of relentless overcast and rain.There seems to be no escaping the hideous rut of horrendous dry, windy, snowless winters combined with foul dull, wet summers. None of the changeable, varied weather that used to be normal. Not ever.

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That true that why I quit weather recording in 2012.  Only did 1 month in July 2013 and May 2018 to Mid August when summer ended. Why not quit and watch weather live cams like I am doing for Namibia Desert Cam on YouTube that show waterhole for wild animals.  The weather are a lot interesting with desert sun, temperatures changes , sandstorms and lately thunderstorms with beautiful cloud structures. I recently watched the storm rolling and hearing thunder and lightning which reminded me of seeing storms here that no longer exist. Namibia climate are more interesting than here among Cyprus climate are the best too and there some live cams as well which I see snow falling in Troodos.

I've seen that Namibia cam and to be honest the weather looks very boring there most of the time. Normally cloudless with highs in the low 30s, day after day. You do get thunderstorms there (though I've not seen one yet) and you are right about the cloudscapes, they can be quite stunning.

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Think this has been the winter with so few eye candy charts and opportunities for the more southern parts that from late January I have been looking forward to warmer spring weather. Winter is bound to make an effort in Spring this year with cold wet days around 3/4 degrees with if only it was…..attached!!

It has been the least interesting winter for me in my lifetime - I recall winter 2019/20 was very zonal but there was sleet and hail showers in February and early March! From a meteorological weather enthusiast perspective it has been absolutely dire . No cold spells or SSW or any easterly or northerly or freezing fog or ice days to report of - even with the high pressure most of January we never managed freezing fog or harsh frosts and daytime temperatures still reached double figures most days! What's the cause of this and why can't we see freezing fog these days under high pressure and why back in the days when we had high pressure we had freezing fog - severe frosts lasting all day?

It maybe a different story further north with storm Malik and Corrie but for us southerners it's been a borefest with an exceptional number of overcast days preventing frosts most of the time and nothingness going on! What is the cause of this high pressure being so overcast and not being a frosty and freezing foggy high? Is the High pressure in the wrong place?

It's fair to say our chances of cold was at or around Christmas and this failed!

I still maintain that the main cause of our milder than average winter or lack of blocking is because of the persistent blocking of high pressure in the NE Pacific/SW Alaska which sends the jet south to N America bringing cold weather there and low pressure forming off eastern seaboard of America and shooting north eastwards from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Greenland and Iceland and flattening the ridge or any ridge that does attempt to form northwards in those Latitudes.

What are your thoughts on this winter?

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According to Gavin P. (who had forecast a cold winter this time like a lot of people) in one of his recent videos, he reckons that we might have failed to get a cold winter this time because the easterly QBO was possibly too strong for that. Normally when you get an easterly QBO, that will tend to favour a cold winter, but it doesn't always actually work out that way and last winter was actually a lot colder than this winter despite the fact that we were in a westerly QBO phase back then which would normally favour a milder winter.

Gavin P. covers the QBO quite a lot during every autumn when is doing his winter update videos and what I have just mentioned about the QBO so far does crop up quite a lot there. I already had a funny feeling though that it was going to be curtains for a cold winter this time when we had that really warm September last year because up until now, there has never been any cold winter on record which has come after such a warm September.

Later on, Gavin P. then looked at the QBO again and noticed that when you get a really strong easterly QBO such as what we have had for this winter, that actually tends to go against us getting a cold winter. It would therefore have been interesting to see whether or not he would still have forecast a cold winter if he had spotted that during his winter update videos and produced a separate set of analogues for that. My thinking is that he might well have taken a different view of this winter as a result, although we will never actually be able to know that for certain.

Finally, it should also be observed that whilst the analogues were pointing towards a cold winter, the vast majority of the model output was actually going for a mild winter this time. Gavin P. in his long term seasonal forecasts are usually largely based on the various analogues from his seasonal update videos and this is often done in a way which tends to result in the model output being overlooked a bit. I have a feeling that this is perhaps yet another occasion where Gavin P. probably should have paid more attention to what the models were saying, rather than relying too much on those analogues because to me, there is obviously a reason why those models were going for a mild winter in the first place.

The end result of this is that whilst all of this might look like a big fail for Gavin P.'s winter forecast and the various analogues, we have to say hats off to the model output at the end of the day for getting that one right.

 

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