I saw  this fantastic image online of deep snow on the Solent south cast..

Shame this is from a by gone era but at least shows that proper snow was once possible down here.

Yes, it really has been that bad in Cumbria, the irony is that we normally do well on spells of cold north westerly winds which essentially is where this months cold weather has come from but due to shear bad luck its been either slightly too warm to snow or when its cold enough far to dry!

Andy

Feel for you Paul. We have our first slight cover here from Christmas Night/Boxing Day....all frozen hard. Snow level on the Cumbrian Fells looks like 300m?

Some of the GFS runs recently have been southerly tracking lows galore.

What an absolutely dire embarrassment this winter is turning into. It's even worse than the last few as far as I'm concerned. The synoptics in those winters were dreadful so there was no expectation of ever getting anything decent.

This winter we have synoptics that should be delivering but they are failing abysmally. This supposed northerly is a joke unworthy of the name. It is awful. Temperature not even dropping below freezing 

Here is a comparison with a northerly of 16th/17th December 2005 to show what we should be getting. 

This was nothing but a bog standard unexceptional northerly 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/archive/2005/noaa/NOAA_1_2005121618_1.png

Then the temperature started mild but soon dropped off sharply. Overnight the temperature was below freezing when dry and above freezing when snowing. The day max was then the same as recorded during this spell but it then dropped to -2C during the second night before milder air moved in on the 18th.

Compare that to the current temperatures which are practically stuck on 1C for 36 hours and it shows just how hopeless and woeful our essentially non-existent weather has become

Link to the comparison graph:

https://ibb.co/k4AFcG 

Richard, even if we'd had a repeat of December 2010 this month, you'd very likely still have found something to moan about!

We're not even seeing a repeat of the most mundane of winter events that used to happen with such regularity that you would take it for granted i.e. the temperature actually dropping below freezing 

Indeed.

It should dip well below freezing tonight as (is nearly always the case) the wind and showers keep the temperature higher overnight last night.

Is there any way to find out where has actually had the least amount of snow?

I know there is a lot of data collection from various weather stations across the country, so would it be possible to collate total snowfall over a period of time - for example 1st January 2011, so nearly 7 years. I know there can be a lot of variation within small distances, but (if it can be done) it would give a guide to which are the snowiest and least snowy areas over that time period, and we would have a clearer idea of who has actually got most to moan about!!!

Thats easy to answer, its here in Bournemouth and most of Dorset where we have had the grand total of 0cm`s of snow not even a single flake has fallen,since March 2013. Northerlies are no longer cold enough to produce snow down here we need a proper easterly which are as rare as hens teeth. When it does snow here its snowmagedon for the rest of the uk.

 It might just be me but I'm actually getting wound up by ITV news coverage of the current weather. SHOCK HORROR as the UK falls to its knees during a spell of very typical weather for this time of year. But then again, I'm typing this after what has been a lovely day with the winter sun drying everything up quickly.
I know there's now more of us on the roads (and today's feather light cars seem to be unable to cope with even an inch of slush) and thus we become more sensitive to travel disruptions, but gawd 'elp us if we actually ever go onto having a 1963-style winter in this life time.

I don't tend to bother with TV news these days, but even when I did try to catch news bulletins, I'd avoid ITV. But I know what you mean about the stupidly easy descent into chaos. I don't just think it's a snow thing, though. Even a minor shunt on a motorway these days has the 'traffic wombles' ((c) Clarkson) coning off two lanes for 3 hours and causing 20 miles of tailbacks, instead of just briefly closing all lanes whilst the affected cars are quickly shunted to the hard shoulder.

That couldn't be further from the truth - modern cars (literally) weigh a ton. The problem is that tyres are generally wider and as such don't sink through the snow so readily.

I've had effectively the same car since my first one back in the 90s, but each time the weight and tyre size has increased. It's the same for other popular cars too.

1992 - Nova 1.2i, 155/70, 0.865 tons

2000 - Corsa B 1.2, 165/70, 0.9 tons

2010 - Corsa D 1.2, 185/65, 1.1 tons

2017 - Corsa E 1.4, 195/55, 1.2 tons

For comparison, a 1980s 2-litre Ford Sierra (several classes above my cars!) weighed 1.1 tons and had 185/65 tyres, smaller than my current Corsa.

Modern cars are bloated pigs, frankly, which is why I've made sure I have tyres capable of going through snow. In the old days you really didn't need them as much, my old Nova with its "cart wheel" tyres (as someone once called them) seemed fine in snow...

Agree about the 'wombles' - road closures these days are ten a penny, maybe H&S to protect road workers and/or get work done more quickly, but I suspect also a lot of lazy thinking.

But in this case, to do justice, the BBC bulletin re the A14 closure showed a jack-knifed lorry broadside on across all three lanes - that would take a bit of shifting!

I'll see your March 2013 (what a waste of time that was) and raise you January 2013 for here. And that was a feeble covering too.

Mind you, when it really does snow here (Dec. 2010, 2009-10 and, a really good one, with stranded motorists etc., November 2005), it's not necessarily the case everyone else does even better. Darren is forever (and rightly) complaining at how pathetic Dec, 2010 was for him, while November 2005 was confined to the West Country and, most pleasingly, got better the further you got into Devon and Cornwall:

At least 1,000 people were left trapped in vehicles as the A39 on Bodmin Moor ground to a halt.

The RAF had to fly in emergency food supplies to more than 300 children stranded at Newquay's Treviglas School.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4471790.stm

And that was off a northerly:

Probably not.

Every winter, the same member, whenever a Scandi high/an easterly possibility arises, does their routine of anticipating the next chart(normally ECM in the 192-240 hr timeframe) as the run comes out and 95% of the time, when the chart comes out, it is not as good as they were predicting.

Don't think they have done it on this site this winter but I know they have done this on netweather last night, and guess what, the chart when it came out wasn't quite what they were expecting. 

Why don't they wait for the chart to come out and then make a comment instead of getting giddy?

Dire morning! Overcast and dull but dry woke up to a balmy +14c by 10am. Such a huge temp swing - on morning of 28th woke up to -1c. So erratic so mild - it's about as bad as it can get for winter! At least last winter we didn;t wake up to a +13 or 14c by 9am

Yet another awful day. Revolting wet windy and dark. This past week has been dreadful and one of the worst Christmas periods I can recall. There has only been one dry day since Christmas Eve and that was pointlessly cold and windy. Had only one proper frost which was followed by rain within hours giving more icy pavements 

This is the key winter period for me so being such a write-off means that January and February will have to produce something very special to make up for yet another atrocious festive period.

Apart from the snow between 8th and 11th, including an ice day on the 10th, this has been another rubbish winter month. Two ridiculously mild weeks with stupid double digit temperatures overnight, a week of treacherous icy pavements and this vile Festive period have all been unappealing in the extreme 

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

So I /we have the right to moan - Last Xmas into January many parts of continental Europe were plunged into a freezer for weeks on end except the UK & Ireland and maybe Scandinavia! Now this winter all the cold air and proper cold severe wintry weather is going to north America instead as well as Canada! When will it be our turn!? Stuff these rubbish one or two day cooler snaps - We need proper sustained cold lasting weeks - It can happen - Feb 09, Jan 2010, Dec 2010 and March 2013 etc etc, but it's never happened since! We are so unlucky!

We are in an easterly QBO, approaching solar minimum. On top of this we are having a La Nina albeit weak and yet we still struggle to get any sustained proper cold weather lasting for more than a day or two! Just pathetic really! Maybe those Midlands northwards did well and have done but for the south it's been dire!

We await a cold spell mid Jan 2018 and that it lasts for more than a day or two. Fingers crossed.

Happy New Year all.

Easterly muck. That is all.