Hang on a minute. I seem to remember these same things being said at this time back in 2009 and of course, we all know what happened after that.

 

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Those living south of the Thames don't know (or at least didn't experience) what happened after that.

As the thread title says, it's a southern thing

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I live well south of the Thames and I had the deepest snow in almost 30 years just 6 days after 2009!

 

Granted the following winter (Nov/Dec 2010) wasn't as good but we did still have snow on the ground for Christmas. And then March 2013 also gave a decent snowy spell, enough to go sledging.

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This thread might have the sub-heading of "it's a southern thing" but it doesn't feel like "just a southern thing to me". When you come to Edinburgh, it has a lot of good things about it. We have our festivals after all as well as a really good football team, and even some nice scenery on our doorstep. There are very few cities after all, which have a big massive hill (which in this case, is Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags) virtually right within its city centre.

When it comes to the weather though, it is a different matter altogether as this has to be the most boring place that you can think of when it comes to the weather (even Jerry from Morningside hinted on the weather never really being all that extreme as being a plus point) but herein for me lies the problem, because there is just not enough going on here with regards to the weather and I am sick to the back teeth of just about everyone else on these forums getting all of the interesting weather which is around whilst we here in Edinburgh get absolutely none of that.

Even this current non-event of a so-called "cold" spell is a casing point here since there has already been at least post (as I write) where the person in question has had an overcast. Yet, we are stuck with cloudy skies and temperatures of 2.9°C at Edinburgh Gogarbank, 3°C at Edinburgh Airport and 4.1°C at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh (which isn't even cold for this time of year) as at 6am this morning and absolutely nothing in the way of even a ground frost.

When a lot of other posters were reporting a lot of rain especially during the early part of the autumn, we didn't get anywhere near as much as that here and whilst a lot of posters have already reported getting a bit of snow during this current season, we have had absolutely nothing in the way of snow here so far and have still not had a single bit of snow here since 2010. Other posters might be unhappy about getting nothing more than a mere flurry of snow but me, I would just be happy if we could at least get that (which if course, we don't these days).

One thing which commonly occurs here during the winter months is that there might be a lot of snow outside of the city which then results in a lot of vehicles showing a good covering when they come into the city, whilst the north of the city (which is where I live) in particular, has nothing at all. It has been said on many occasions that I often don't need to go far to get that, but it is the fact that I have to go anywhere else at all that I have the greatest issue with since I would much rather be getting those weather conditions right here on my doorstep and to me, the fact that I do have to go elsewhere for that (even if that is relatively nearby) is just yet another example of just everyone else getting that more interesting weather except for here.

From that, I think that we can clearly see that this isn't just a "southern" thing as others might put it.

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Facebook just showed me this photo I took seven years ago, showing the extreme snowfall of 2010.

 

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I had some cracking pictures of my snowy trip to York on the last Sunday in November that year - real 'once in a lifetime' stuff.

Then went and left my phone on the train on the way home from the work's Xmas do after falling asleep and waking just as it pulled into the station after my own and then leaping off. Could have wept (in fact, in my drunken state, I think I possible did do ).

 

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At least it settled.

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I really do hate the low sun at this time of year. My bedroom is south-facing so the stupid angle of the sun makes it really hard to sleep in the run-up to Christmas, when I'm on nights. This is the one time of year where I just want it to be cloudy.

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Have you tried putting up some black-out curtains there? I have the same problem during the summer with the Sun shining right into my bedroom windows at just after 4:30am (that is of course, on those few occasions where we actually get some sunshine here during the summer since this is Scotland after all) since my bedroom window faces east. However, I find that black-out curtains help quite a lot with keeping that sunshine out, so they could help you as well.

 

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Surely there must be a good chance of a completely frost free month or even winter. Not just on the South Coast but up here as well.

This abomination of a November has shown that we wouldn't even need the sort of rancid southerly synoptics of the past two Decembers for that to come off.

We have a thin covering of snow here, a clear sky and a northerly. Not even that windy yet the temperature is stuck on +0.6C and has been for over a half an hour. If it won't go below freezing under this then what the hell would it actually take?

There just isn't the words to adequately describe how crap this is

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I have a feeling though, that this might be the best that you get for a while so I would make the most of it I was you. Tomorrow is forecast to be another so-called "cold" day and even most of Friday as well. However, we then have a very weak warm front coming in from the north-west after that which is forecast to bring milder air behind it. In other words, we go into the start of the actual winter and then, it's a case of normal service resumed once again with the milder weather coming back which is just typical.

 

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Clear and sunny forecast here, so I suppose I shouldn't grumble, but it is frustrating to see extensive snow forecast just across the Channel SOUTH of us. Yes, I can see why a warm Channel and a cold northerly would produce snow showers there, but still ...

https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/snow-risk

To add insult to injury, the same link has a feature in which it forecasts heavy snow for the south of England, always in its last two frames a permanent fortnight ahead

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Last day of Autumn and we’re already two pages in on the winter moaning thread. 😂😂😂😂

A serious question for you Richard: Are you EVER happy with any of the weather you get these days?

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Actually, if you saw the pictures which he posted onto the snow reports thread, you will see that it might actually be possible for him to be happy with the weather in his part of the world after all.

If anything, I would probably say that I actually have the greatest reason to be unhappy amongst all of the Scottish members since we still haven't had any snow here in Edinburgh during November since 2010 and to make matters worse, I probably wouldn't even be surprised if this is the only remaining place in Scotland to have never seen any snow during this month which as far as I'm concerned, is just typical of how things seem to go these days I suppose.

 

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What is there ever to be happy about these days? Wet, cloudy summers and frost-free, snowless winters don't appeal to me in the slightest and that's all we ever get.

Sadly it wouldn't at all surprise me if today's snow is more than there is at any point over the winter. I said a year ago that the frosty spell in November was as good as it would get and was proved correct then.

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Yep! I knew that it wouldn't be long before normal service was resumed here, otherwise these threads just probably wouldn't be the same.

For me, what I am about to share is more of a gloat than a moan because we now have two nights in a row where there has been an air frost at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh.

I have been guilty quite recently of complaining about the temperatures not dropping quickly enough or not dropping at all (or in some cases, even going up when they should be dropping). Looking back at my own statistics though, I have discovered that the number of air frosts at my three local stations has actually been above the 1981-2010 average so I don't really have anything to complain about on that score, as long as this then doesn't end up being "it" for our winter.

That is always a possibility as milder air is forecast to move in from tomorrow night and the return of the northerlies after that is now being further delayed all the time and even downgraded in a number of models to being more of a transient cold snap before the next milder spell moves in.

if it does get milder and stay that way for much of the winter, there are only two possible benefits from that which I can see. First of all, that would reduce my heating bills a bit. Secondly, that would probably come with the weather becoming more unsettled. Hopefully, that wouldn't mean a return to really mild, wet and stormy weather as there is always a risk that this could happen. However, it has been very dry here recently and so any rainfall which came from that would probably be very much welcome and much needed rainfall as a result.

 

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This one has to be worthy of a gloat but it emphasises the very strange nature of our weather just now, and how it can be hard to fathom all of that out.

Now a few days ago, we were in a northerly air mass from the Arctic, but where the temperature quite often refused to drop at night and this meant that we didn't actually get as many air frosts from that as you would expect from that sort of air mass.

Tonight on the other hand, we have had a warm front move through from the north-west which has introduced what is supposed to be "milder" air mass. In recent winters, it would have been an absolutely stone wall guarantee that this would have resulted in the wind picking up from the south or south-west with the temperatures then shooting up to such insanely high values during the night that on many occasions, it would actually be warmer even in the middle of winter than on many occasions during the summer.

On this occasion though, that hasn't happened. These are two entirely different air masses which I am talking about here in yet, the temperature just now is turning out to be not all that different in both cases, and is even behaving in virtually the same way. The dew points have now all gone above freezing, but the fact they were below freezing before is the only thing which you can actually use to identify that as a "warm" front.

This in turn, has to be good news for those of us who want a cold winter. In those really mild recent winters, the lowest maximum temperatures here in one of the few relatively cold spells which we got would be around the 7°C mark. In a cold winter, that would be the sort of maximum temperatures which we could get in one of the few relatively mild spells which we got during those winters. At the moment, I'm seeing the maximum temperatures being forecast to be not much more than that over this over the next few days within what is supposed to be a relatively mild spell of weather.

That is something which I haven't witnessed for quite a number of years and so, that surely has to raise some hopes at least that we could well have finally entered into a decent cold winter for once. That doesn't necessarily mean that this will be a repeat of we saw in 2010 but at the moment, I would say that things are actually looking quite good in that department just now.

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Any other southerners getting board of seeing the northerners & Scots get excited about the prospect of some snow? Feeling a bit underwhelmed about a chilly but not that cold N/NW wind.

No, not bored but more resigned. Already people are bringing out the old cliches like it being "bitterly cold".... if a high of 3C with a breeze is "bitterly cold", what on earth would they describe the "good old days" of -2C by day with a gale force easterly as?

Similarly, talk of widespread snow... yes, we could roll a triple 6 and see widespread lowland snow down here in the south, but even if we do get some - with temperatures a few degrees above zero by day it'd melt PDQ.

That's northerlies for you though (or NW'lies, as they're more likely to be by the time they reach here). What I wouldn't give for a midwinter easterly... it'll have been 21 years this winter since the last one. Surely the drought has to end sooner or later, doesn't it?...

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By today's standards a max of 3c with a strong wind is often as good as it gets cold-wise. With the odd exceptional day that might get to zero. So its all relative.  Those days of -4 maxes in the teeth of an easterly or north easterly as I saw in 1972,1978,  1979, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1991, 1996 and 1997 are I fear, consigned to a bygone era, before the Arctic and Polar regions warmed.

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 Sadly if you like cold weather i think you are right. It just does not get as cold now. 

A high of 3C wow that would be nice from a northerly here as it' difficult to get a max much lower then 5C down here.

Dry chilly winds with scenes of snow from favoured coastal locations with the outside hopes of a rogue overnight flurry - many a year of desperation has left me depleted. 

And yes as you say, any widespread lowland snow from back edge stuff would be very temporary before it either melted or froze into a death trap. 

I remember the bitter easterly winds of the early & mid 90's but even they failed to deliver decent snow cover here. 

Portsmouth is a notorious snow desert.  You used to be able to rely on a 'channel runner' but the atmosphere has warmed to the wrong side of marginal.  I'm not quite saying game over, but game very much less frequent and much much more difficult.

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One thing that does grate on me slightly is those who poo-poo others snow chances just because they themselves aren’t living in a favourable area this time around. 

It may come to absolutely nothing towards the end of the week, but for many of those areas where the outlook currently looks promising, it’s the same areas that don’t very often get snow (ie lowland Western Britain). Give us a sodding chance. 😀

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