Some of the frost and ice here this morning is like bloody glass. It took me over 10 minutes to scrape the car, it's that hard. My God I hate winter!

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Or petty arguing over will it snow and/or that damn shortwave spoil it for us all again. 

Here at Folkestone, earlier on today I only needed a cardie when I popped out to get the paper where the low winter noon sun felt pleasantly warm on the face. If the lawn isn't quite so damp after yesterday's rain, I'd be breaking out the mower.

Granted, we may not be having that much luck in terms of real cold snowy weather so far, but I'll settle for second best with calm, mild and sunny weather like I'm experiencing today.

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I'm beginning to think no matter what background signals we have in place or what day ten on the ECM, ENS, MOGREPS and GLOSEA show this winter will continue on the current path of a snoozefest. Sometimes things just aren't meant to be and this winter may well just be one of them.

Oh well just to thoroughly depress, at least those people that have not yet returned to work, can do so knowing winter has again, apparently passed them by and the days are getting longer too...roll on summer!

Yep. Despite all the good background signals it just hasn't clicked into place for the UK. I had a bit more optimism for this Winter compared to the last few but this is slowly diminishing now as the weeks go by with seemingly no end to the dross.

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The weather has been dull and non-descript but there are few benefits to take from that and that is no damage to homes/businesses and also my garden is no where near as waterlogged and muddy as the past few winters.

We've had some really hard frosts and I'd say so far this autumn/winter I've scrapped my windscreen more than the past few put together. What is lacking though due to having no storms etc is that the higher ground of the Peak District is becoming a snow desert this season. At least with those disruptive spells there were some good dumps of snow up the tops.

As it stands now I've not seen a flake of snow this season and I think this is now the latest date I've not seen snow since I moved to the Stoke area 9 years ago!

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3 years 10  months and counting since the last snowfall of more than 1 minute IMBY. 

A horrific run that has no parallel, quite this bad.  Desperate times for those that like proper winter.

I mean, a 3 day cold shot from the east a la Jan-Feb 1972 would be sufficient, a decent toppler, a la Feb 1983 would suffice, beggars cant be choosers, but the diet has become either zonal gruel or anticyclonic dust . Yuk!

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The way I see it SC, is that these so called 'background signals' we have been hearing about lately are really always there in every winter, it is just a matter of how they may or may not work for us in this bleak, desolate, grey part of the world.

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It's been yet another dire festive period full of unseasonable crap. It's so bad that it's making me wish I was back at work. Little worth photographing last week bar a few good sunrises/sunsets which accounted for around 10 minutes out of 24 hours

 

Far worse since Saturday afternoon with write-off conditions once more. The biggest joke of a non-cold spell in recorded history. Haven't left the house as conditions have been vile. Just a return to the grey damp muck of the first three weeks of December. Not that it was much better in between. Two frosts and five days with 3 hours sun is all this unremittingly rotten and depressing horror-show winter has produced after 34 days

 

Don't see the point of having a holiday today. Weather is utter crap. Pathetically mild, windy and grey yet again at over 8C already. Sick to death if this disgusting nonsense but no end in sight to these repellent conditions meaning the first half of winter will be a complete write-off just like last year and 2013/14. The three worst winters of my lifetime occurring inside four years.

 

I just wish that this ****hole island would sink into the sea and we could be evacuated to somewhere with a half decent climate. That would seem about the only solution to the constant suicide-inducing hell that has become entrenched in this decade whereby summer and winter are just atrocious write-offs year in year out and spring and autumn are the only seasons capable of producing either warm and sunny weather or cold and snow.

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I think a lot of them are way overestimated for our part of the world, I mean what happens in Indonesia has little bearing on whether it snows IMBY. 😂😂😂

Thats one of your best rants ever Richard. 😄

For lovers of real winters a less futile option than waiting for Albion to sink into the waters is to move to high ground. For a few years I lived in the countryside at an altitude of 950 ft and the increase in snow and frost compared to lowland towns and cities had to be seen to be believed. An average winter there was roughly equivalent to a severe winter at sea level. Of course there was also more wind and rain to put up with, but that has its pleasures too. While I lived there (Tarbrax in South Lanarkshire) a neighbour showed me photos of the snowstorm of February 2001, which left the village engulfed in snow. The level depth must have been around three feet and the drifts were so great that a car was buried under one without anyone knowing about it until the thaw came. Another neighbour claimed that a temperature of -29.2 C was (unofficially) recorded there in 1989, making it the coldest place in the UK. I think she meant 1979, when -24.6C was officially recorded in nearby Carnwath. Certainly it didn't take much for frost to form. It's a different world up there. 

 

Hopefully this sheds some winter light on what is currently dark and gloomy corner of the forum.😀

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yes it seems a bit pointless moaning about the lack of snow if you choose to live in sheltered low land or even central Scotland. I live as a child in the late 60s and 70's in Southampton being low and coastal snow was as rare as hen's teeth and short lived events when they occurred. Then it all changed in the 80's when snow was a little more common but returned to its rare state in the 90's.. so this is maybe the normal over most of the the lowland UK?

The key to snow in Southern England of any significance has always been cold easterly air from Russia established with a persistent Scandinavian high which is then squeezed with one or more channel lows , and that seems to be an increasingly elusive scenario, 2010 being the last time I believe.
Best Regards
Alan

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Unfortunately many of us are tied to living within commuting distance of London. If I wasn't then I would chose to live in the mountains, undoubtedly.

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 Trump, Putin and China don't care about climate change so perhaps the oceans will rise very quickly and the Thames will reach Croydon

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The eighties were indeed quite snowy, along with the late seventies, with frequent outbreaks of easterly winds in winter. Often when an easterly develops it's colder in southern England than it is further north. Then we envy you😡. An easterly has to be especially cold to give sub-zero maxima even in Scotland, but when it does we often get heavy dumps of snow. I think the last notable easterly outbreak here was March 2013. Up here, northerlies can give sub-zero maxima too, although the highlands and north-facing coasts get most of the snow. They used to be fearful affairs, often bringing a penetrating frost even in spring. I remember one in April 1976. My friend and I were camping in the southern uplands and we were almost caught out by the fierce cold (frozen streams in the morning) and hefty showers of granular snow. But in recent years northerlies have become pallid affairs. I feel like we've moved to Southampton.

 

 

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Sick to the back teeth of the inability to get the weather most of us want in this country.

I have a theory that the weather patterns we get are set in stone but they run out of sinc with the seasons. That's why we get all that wonderful northern blocking in Summer and summer like set ups now. We need to wait for the realignment of the 2 before we strike gold again. Might take a few years depending on how far out we are

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Snowhoper, I agree, its an out of sync thing, partly.  Changing climate 50%, out of sync 50%. lets say.  Maybe the lack of synchronicity is due to the changing climate?  Who knows?

God knows!

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The weather is absolutely shite on high ground in the north though - it really doesn't snow that much but it rains a lot and summers are significantly and noticeably cooler. At least in Hampshire you can be guaranteed some good weather in summer. 

Not to mention that recent summers in the south have been generally good or very good - whereas in Scotland particularly they've been below par. Seriously, you're better off living where you are.

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Quite right Rob. Some really stupid posts on here today - calling settled and dry weather 'dross' just because it isn't snowing. 

As much as I like snow, I'm perfectly content with continuing high pressure near or over the UK, as long as it keeps rain-bearing fronts at bay. 

Seems to have been a reasonably sunny month across England as well. 

In January last year we had nearly 20 days of rain! I'm happy to say that this year is looking completely different.

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I think you are missing the point.

Its a moaning thread.

People are entitled to moan about what ever the heck they want. Just look at Richard of Aberdeen - he turns it into an art-form.

 

 

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Where I quietly catch up on the various outputs throughout the day, I'm starting to think of it being like the footy with England in it. Where it has been 0-0 for ages with lots of passing back and forth with not much really happening.

However, that said, I'd rather have this current set up than put up with endless gale force winds and incessant rain aka Winter 2104. 

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I guess that's one way of looking at it. He just looks like a bit of a lunatic to the casual observer. 

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Christ it can never be that bad. 😂😂😂