The coming week looks so dire and unfestive that last December’s mean looks odds on to be beaten. Oodles of cloudy, mild, frost-free dross to look forward too while I’m off next week. Just wonderful on top of the last 5 years. Proper zonality would be preferrable as there would be more sun than with the anticyclonic muck we've already suffered in abundance this month.

It seems that since 2011 Ebenezeer Scrooge has taken control of the Christmas weather with no snow and practically no frost either other than in 2014. The next week looks close to record mild with maxes averaging 9-10C and minima 4-5C. It’s just diabolical with nothing below 2C, extending the frost-free muck into a fourth week.

Previous year's averages for week of 24-30 Dec:

2015: 5.9
2014: 1.4
2013: 4.6
2012: 3.5
2011: 6.1
2010: 1.7
2009: -1.0
2008: 3.9
2007: 4.5
2006: 2.5
2005: 2.3

Current output suggests 2016 will beat 6.1C in 2011 to be the mildest Christmas week I have recorded and probably mildest since 1988

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Just bringing this thread back onto page 1 so that people fan post all the off topic b*all*x here rather than in the MO thread that just clogs up and gives the Mods a tough time.

Merry Christmas Moaners 

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Morning all and Merry Christmas.

It's so mild I might pop on a pair of shorts to chase the turkey round the garden 

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When Brexit finally happens do you think we will lose the Euro Slug as well?

If you want some cold weather this Christmas best go to Greece, I hear it's very festive there.

Merry Christmas, bah humbug.....

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The weather on Christmas Day doesn't make even the slightest bit of difference to me. I couldn't care less whether it's cold and snowy, exceptionally mild or wet and windy. It isn't even remotely important. I won't be leaving the house today. I'll just be having a nice chilled day with TV, food, booze and family. The same goes for Boxing Day.

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Spring moaning thread pre start today......!!!!!!!

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If it wasn't for the wind it would probably be a pleasant day - a fair amount of sunshine with top temps of 14C. More like April than December.

I'd prefer snow, but hey ho - this isn't too bad. No rain is the most important thing! 

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Lordy...the weather has been so naff that no-one can be bothered even moaning about it anymore...no posts on here for over 24hrs...!!

Currently recording 1044mb under fine clear skies here at Kent. I could live with that and hope this high pressure set up eats into the rest of this winter as much as it can. Far more preferable than the ghastly horror show that was the winter of 2014.

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The last bit of snow in my garden looks like it only has minutes to live.

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Can't say the last six days were particularly great but fantastic compared to the first 20 days of winter. Now it's back to another tedious high bringing more mild dross.

Wind died down too late to get anywhere near a frost last night and unbelievably its increasing in strength since sunset. What a complete joke. Was down to 1.2C at 5pm but now up at 2.8C. Frost looking unlikely now yet again.

Over three weeks since the last frost and now the third longest frost-free winter period in my records. New record likely to be set if the wind can't drop out completely tonight:

26 days – 14/12/15 to 8/1/16
25 days – 20/12/11 to 13/1/12
22 days – 6/12/16 to present

Not even March has managed a frost-free period as long as any of those in my 11-year records which shows how desperate winter is becoming. Where else at such a northerly latitude would struggle to get a frost for weeks on end at the coldest time of year?

There was also no frost between 8th and 28th December 2013 so that is four out of six winters that have managed three weeks frost free when I can’t think of any before that in my lifetime apart from 1988/89. Just shows the depths being plumbed – a truly unprecedented run of dire, dispiriting tripe.

The only difference between this crap winter and 2013/14 and 2015/16 is that the post-solstice washouts in those horror shows have yet to appear this winter though plenty of time yet I suppose.

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You think that's bad?

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Todays min was lower than anything last December

Todays max was lower than anything last December

And we had as much snow today as we had in the whole of last winter .....






But I dont live in Aberdeen

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We're in North Wales for New Year, and have to set off for home early afternoon on NYD. The timing for snow potential in that area is (as it stands) about 6 hours out. Bugger. I love driving through snow - especially when it's necessary; making an excuse to drive in it seems like cheating, somehow.

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Well that's been a slow but seemingly inevitable slide from promise of exciting weather, back to the sort uninspiringly banal crapfest that characterises the UK's awful climate.

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Absolutely. 

The only positive I can find is that at least this will help me catch up on some work, as I won't be distracted by snowy scenes and trips to the Pennines to go sledging.

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You mean the way the snow hurtles towards the screen before zooming up and over if it's dry, or splatting on the screen if it's wet, the fact you can see heavier patches coming a few seconds before they hit, and the sight of the white coating building up on the road slush when the snow is heavy? And the snow in car headlights of course.

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That post is just cruel.

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I could nip out later when it's dark and record a video if it would help? 

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It is. Beautiful but cruel. I feel like the little match girl, being shown glimpses of my heart's simple desires, just to snap back to dismal reality once the image fades.

Or something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tried to sledge down the hill, nothing happened, didn't even get stuck in the mud.

Might get up on the roof later, just incase the higher altitude throws me a frozen raindrop.

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The door has now closed on yet another truly dire year and winter month which I’m glad to see the back of.

Total write-off December with little to separate it from December 2015. Neither managed to beat the record from 1934 but together they make the mildest pair on record easily beating the likes of 1910/11, 1931/32 and 1974/75

Here’s the daily means from both awful months. They look more like what the maxima should be like. Just five colder than average days in 2015 and 2016 went one worse managing only four. Ridiculous min of 11.1C on 31st Dec 2016 which beat 10.8C on 19th Dec 2015 and we had to suffer the 2nd mildest Christmas day on record only five years after the mildest

Here’s a table of all the winter months since I started recording in 2005. I’ve given one point for each air frost and one point for each sub 5C max. Ties have been sorted using sunshine hours. Didn’t start recording that until 2006/07 so have estimated totals for the previous winter. Dec 2016 deservedly right down at the bottom along with Dec 2015. Two detestable months.

What this really shows is what a pile of utter rubbish winters have been over the past decade with the exception of 2009/10 and Dec 2010. Months like Jan 2015 and Jan 2016 getting into the top half shows just how bad it’s been. Even the colder months now produce next to no snow whereas quite often mild months in the past delivered e.g. Feb 1999, Dec 2000, Jan 2004, Feb 2004.

As for 2017 it’s off to an underwhelming start with an embarrassing excuse for a cold spell. Another above average min of 1.6C and largely dry with around 10 minutes of wet snow so far. More like anticyclonic dross than a northerly really with pressure still above 1020mb

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Meanwhile in the MO we have a JFF bitch slapping a Murr Sausage to then the Sausage slapping back the JFF

...Only in Autumn....sorry Winter!

Anyway it would help the Mods if it was done in here and not the MO

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So today we woke up to the reality that the cold weather is bypassing us once again, as some of us predicted y/day, and is going down into Europe and all the fantastic charts/forecasts have come to nought for the UK...I despair...