This has been a boring cold spell here. We have had snow lying for a week but there was only really one day of proper snow (last Friday) and the depth hasn’t exceeded 6cm which fails to beat the best of the past four years

Only one properly cold night of -6.1C as well, so basically a 48 hour northerly toppler spread out across a week. The average minimum was lower for the week ending 25th November 2016 (-2.1C), when we had no snow, than this week(-1.8C). Diurnal ranges have been pathetically low, as always. Tonight, despite being calm and clear, the temperature is no colder than it was three hours ago and is actually rising for no logical reason. Complete and utter garbage 

It also rained on Tuesday which has made the pavements treacherous to walk on

Looks like turning utterly dire from Sunday onwards with more stupidly mild temperatures following on from one of the mildest first weeks of winter ever recorded. The crap we will get is reminiscent of the depressing cloudy, mind-numbing mild dross of last December as well as 2013 and 2015. The only thing worse in the run up to Christmas were the horrendous conditions of 2012. I can see the Festive Period turning out a write-off yet again.

There were White Christmases here in 1993, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2009 and 2010. No other period of comparative length had so many in the last 160 years. All proper White Christmases with snow lying on the ground as well. Only 2000 did not see lying snow all day – just the afternoon.

We’ve been paying for it ever since though with abysmally awful Festive periods since 2011 with barely even a frost. Pity the concept of payback doesn’t appear to extend to all the vile wet summers since 1998 or all the crappy mild, dull Octobers there’s been lately.

 

 

 

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If there is anything worse than seeing no snow at all here in Edinburgh whilst just about everywhere else in the country enjoys seeing plenty of it, it has to be this latest really depressing BBC Week Ahead forecast for Louise Lear which I have just watched.

If that forecast verifies in the end, we will have nothing but long-fetch south-westerlies from now on once we get to around Sunday, and he eventual return to that nightmare scenario of constant double figure temperatures and countless nights which end up being warmer than many days which we have had even in the middle of summer.

Is that really 'it' for our winter?

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Mildest!?? Really?

Well anyway count yourself lucky - Exeter hasn't even seen a snowflake yet! - Lot's of sleet and ice pellets as well as heavy hail yesterday though.

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Well, I don't know about that being one of the mildest starts to a winter on record since I'm sure that there may will have been at least one recent candidate from December 2013 onwards which might have challenged that, especially December 2015 which did end up being the mildest December on record, possibly thanks to that massive El Nino which occurred at the end of that year.

However, my own local temperature anomalies for this month were at one point in time, running over 3°C warmer than average well into the start of the month up until the point in time when Storm Caroline came onto the scene. At that point in time, it had looked as this temperature anomaly would be very difficult to overcome during the rest of this month.

Since then though, we have had quite a decent ice day sandwiched in between two of our coldest December nights since 2010 and now all of a sudden, my local temperature anomalies are now running over half a degree colder than average (incredible as well, that the CET for this month is now running around 1°C colder than average as well, after running almost 2°C warmer than average not all that long ago). Now, the only thing which has been missing from this winter has been some snow in this part of the world and there are even plenty of people in other parts of the country which have had plenty of that already. For those locations which have had some snow, this has actually therefore, ended up being a really good start to the winter so far.

That shows how quickly, things can change but then, that could happen the other way as well especially as the latest forecasts have us going into a similar sort of mild and dry pattern with high pressure close by to the SE feeding in those really mild long fetch SW's which dominated much of last winter. That could easily swing everything back to being milder than average overall once again and I still have this uneasy feeling that this is still how it is all going to end up in the end.

 

 

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Same as the above in North Northumberland!

I would certainly agree with some of the posts in this thread...what winter cold spell in the far south? .."a couple of marginal air frosts that thawed by mid morning and temps of 5-7c at their coldest is hardly an artic blast as described by some. A frost that even lasted in the shade all day would be an achievement. A couple of hours of early morning sleet, just made for a miserable dark day and as for the future prospects, with the prevailing, even milder still, weather coming in from the south west for the foreseeable and through the shortest day, it feels like it's been a few weeks of wasted winter weather rather than a proper cold spell.

Ice everywhere. Side roads and paths are lethal with ice up to an inch thick on many surfaces. I think we’ve need the thaw for health and safety purposes!

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It amazes me that we spend so much time (often up to a number of years in this so called modern era of the Great British winter) hoping to get a decent spell of cold weather with some snow. Then if and when that happens, we are then glad to see the back of it because it has now become too icy.

Of course, there are good reasons for that and I agree with everything which has been said here. However, that actually reminds of what happens during the summer when we long for some hot and sunny weather only to find that once that happens, we are then glad to see the back of that because it is now so humid and muggy that we are now looking for a massive thunderstorm to break that down.

I suppose therefore, that this situation with it being icy (and it has been quite icy here as well today, even though we don't have any snow) is really just the winter equivalent of that. In that context, the milder air coming from tomorrow can therefore be seen as the winter equivalent of some cooler and fresher air arriving during the summer months after such a hot spell.

 

 

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I can't understand why there's so much pessimism and misery already (mainly on t'other side). If cold and snow is what you like, I'd argue that this has probably been the best first half of December since 2010, especially around this area. Quite a few hard frosts, a good number of days with maxima in the low single figures and a couple of snowy periods thrown in too.

I can maybe understand some of the more southern areas complaining, but I do also think some coldies expect way, way, way too much from our winters sometimes. If deep snow fields and weeks and weeks of sub-zero maxima is all you're happy with, then I think you're going to be very disappointed the vast majority of years.

It's the same as those who expect weeks and weeks of high-20s and wall to wall sunshine in summer.

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Absolutely agree. I think perspective is lost sometimes. 

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Yep, we tend to forget winters such as December 2010 and 2009/10 are the exception not the norm. 

Yes, this is the modern era after all.

 

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😂😂😂😂 Tis always been the modern era, historical data tells us this.

Don’t you bloody start pal! 🙄😂

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stop injecting humour ...this is the moaning thread!...hence the moans !😀

 

 Nothing humorous about that and technically speaking, this is actually a moan itself because what I am actually doing here, is complaining about the fact that winters just don't seem to be the way that they used to be.

I just think that it's sad that certain people don't seem to see it that way.

 

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I think it’s sad that people obsess about this very topic so much. 

We have no control over the weather, we need to accept and try to appreciate whatever is thrown at us. You may be of the opinion that our weather has become more boring - I still manage to find plenty of interest in it. Maybe I have the bar set that little bit lower. 

I will now dip out of this thread so you can carry on moaning and moaning and moaning. 😂 

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The fact that you have talked about lowering the bar proves that even you are seeing that the weather isn't the same as it used to be and are more than happy to admit that which in turn proves that I have been right all along.

 

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I haven’t lowered the bar - I simply meant that perhaps I am easier to please than you or others.

You can moan about the “modern winter” as much as you like, and bleat and moan about how today’s winters aren’t as good as they used to be, that’s your choice.

Personally I accept that we have no control over what is thrown at us, I shrug my shoulders, accept that we live in a maritime climate, and try and find interest in what we get. 

For what it’s worth, I think the weather has been very interesting this winter so far, despite not receiving any meaningful lying snow in my location. 

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Living now in Cornwall we don't really get big variations in the weather.. In fact a Cornish saying is- the difference between summer and winter is 5 degrees!!!

So when there is talk and a general momentum towards a colder than average winter and the possibility that even we might get snow falling on the Palm trees your interest is heightened... Only to find out it was hype and the same old same old continued...

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