And I can't understand how people think what they had applies to everyone. Here's my weather log from December 2010. The columns are max, min, grass min, snow or sleet falling, snow depth at 9AM (in cm) and comments.

01-Dec    2.7    1.1   -0.1    Yes    3    
02-Dec   -0.4   -1.7    1.2    Yes    17    max 18cm
03-Dec   -0.4   -8.6   -9.7    Yes    16    Over 60 hours of continuial snowfall
04-Dec    5.4    3      1.1           5     Rain AM & again PM
05-Dec    3     -2     -1.5           remnants    
06-Dec   -0.4   -2.2   -2             remnants    
07-Dec    2.8    0.8    0.6           remnants    
08-Dec    2.6   -2.1   -3.6           remnants    
09-Dec    3.7    1.6   -0.2           remnants    
10-Dec    7.3    4.1    2.5           remnants    
11-Dec    8.4    2      1.3            
12-Dec    5.9    0.2   -0.1            
13-Dec    3.3    2.6    2.3            
14-Dec    3.8    1.3    0.9            
15-Dec    4.5    3.2    2.7            
16-Dec    7.3   -3.3   -6.3    Yes          Temp fell from 6.8C @3 to 3.3C @4
17-Dec   -0.2   -6.7   -9.9                 Snow showers at work, none at home.
18-Dec    1     -6.3   -8.9    Yes          7cm @ 3PM -10C grass temp at 6:27AM
19-Dec    2     -8.6  -10.2    Yes    6                
20-Dec    0.7    0.3   -1      Yes    5    
21-Dec    3.2    1.6    0.7    Yes    9    thaw set in overnight 20/21
22-Dec    2.9    0.5    0.2           4    
23-Dec    2.6    1.1    0.4    Yes    Remnants    A few flakes mixed in with the rain
24-Dec    2.6   -1.5   -1.9           Remnants    
25-Dec   -0.1   -2.8   -4.5           Remnants    
26-Dec    1.9   -2.2   -3.9           Remnants    
27-Dec    3.2    2      1.1           Remnants    
28-Dec    5      5      4.6    Yes    Remnants    A few flakes mixed in with the rain
29-Dec    8.3    3.8    4.1            
30-Dec    5.5    3.5    3.5            
31-Dec    5.7    5      4.4            

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Winter has set in for Northern Scandinavia

https://www.windy.com/-Webcams/Sweden/Norrbotten-County/Kiruna/Ofelas-Icelandic-horses-and-guide-service-Puoltsa/webcams/1582371905?66.813,20.224,6 

Retron: I don't doubt your figures for a second.

But if there were hotspots such as yours on the Kent coast, it just goes to show how incredibly cold the bulk of the country must have been to record such a low final average for the month. 

My gripe is that the bulk of the country seems to have erased that experience from its collective consciousness. It's now taken as read that UK winters have been rubbish for 35 years, and will be for evermore. Every episode of wintriness, or month of record-breaking national cold, is just dismissed as merely localized or the wrong kind of snow.

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I've not! One of the most remarkable spells of winter I can remember. 

However, for much of it, I was panicking we wouldn't get snow here. We had experienced heavy snow in late Nov - but that was on a day out to York. IMBY it had been Baltic but bone dry (save some freezing fog and the odd rime), and potential PPN bands for here that appeared in models were downgraded by the day itself. When one was modelled for Friday 17th, I kept everything crossed, and it delivered in spades. Could enjoy it better and relax once everywhere was white. 

I'd actually put the preceding winter as No1 of the decade, though. A less intense and shorter lived cold spell in the December at least gave us a good covering of snow on the ground for Xmas, then a thaw from Boxing Day, before winter returned, bringing the deepest snow here I can remember (a couple in my childhood may have been deeper, but I never measured back then) that lasted on the ground almost a month.

We had a very snowy Jan & Mar 2013, too (although all were within short-lived cold snaps). In fact, all falls since (we've had at least a half a cm covering every? subsequent winter) have been in frustratingly brief snaps, barring the BftE spell in 2018, and that was annoyingly dry here, with just a couple of 1cm falls, and it wasn't that even cold in this region.

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Good to read, Saint.

The March episodes are a good illustration of the sort of thing I meant. March 2013 was cold but bone-dry down here in the West Country. A non-event. While March 2018 was extraordinary - well over six inches of snow on 1 March, rather spoilt by a thick layer of frozen rain on top. But then several more inches again on the 19th, and utterly perfect that time. And all this at just 32 m asl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwWPlT371I8

If I were of a certain inclination, I'd simply dismiss March 2013, 'cos it didn't snow here, while 1 March 2018 was useless because of the freezing rain, and 19 March was obviously too late to be any good, so I shouldn't have been out sledging the way I was. And there we go. We'll never have a proper winter again.

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I wouldn't complain about Feb 2009 or Dec 2010 here and to a lessser extent Feb/March 2018.

What I don't think we see so much these days though (and I'm just flying on gut instinct here) is the solid anticyclonic North-Easterly of the type that always managed to get East Kent on the national news with huge piles of snow blocking everything. To me that is a 20th century thing.

Even here in SW London we are much too far from the East Coast to get that very often even in a really strong Nor-Easter but it just seems ages ago  to me that we had one of those events

 

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Fair enough. I'd just take issue with "always". How often, on a century scale, have anti-cyclonic n-easterlies actually struck Kent?

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/can-you-believe-this-happened-in-kent-220634/

This lists three events in the 19thC, three in the twentieth, and two, so far, in the 21stC.

(Worth clicking on the link and disabling your adblocker, just to see the photos, particularly of 2010 and 2018 in Kent. 

Darren really is unlucky.

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Hi Brian - A message of you!?)

The TWO's 150 day forecast are these purely computer generated or model based automated? I recall yesterday it was going for 10 snowy days in the south of England and a min temperature of -3c.Looking at the summary:

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twoforecasts/daily-ultra-long-range.aspx?region=1&summary=y

Looking at your TWO 150 day forecast today it shows a min temperature of 3c and no snowy days!?

Or is this something not worth looking at?

 

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It looks like a moderate to strong La Nina this year and statistically that does favour  colder conditions in November / December with very strong westerlies later  (from sometime in December onwards). The W QBO also favours strong westerlies

 That could mean something like:

November may bring a short sharp northerly with sleet or snow showers in the north and a few dry but chilly days in the south. By December the Atlantic steps up a gear and it remains the dominant feature through a mild and wet winter. 

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Just when you thought last year was bad enough and couldn't get more mild, zonal and westerly even if it tried to..!?

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Not really a forecast but wow! This strength of zonal winds will stay positive before going record breaking positive yet again - usually coincides with a positive AO and NAO in combination with a strong PV!!Things could change however, less than a week many ENS even the GEFS members went for a weaker zonal flow and the AO as well as NAO was forecast to go neutral to negative and we saw signs of northern blocking in several of the model runs but now it has flipped sadly

 

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^^^^^

If that's accurate we are in big trouble -kiss goodbye to a cold Winter 

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JFF 

Can live in hope lol

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Exactly - the ENS members are going off the scale there.

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This is starting to look like a mild winter , obviously things can change but its not looking great is it ?

Last year was bad enough here , no snow at all , I didn't expect a repeat 

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Didn’t that cold spell in January 87 come from nowhere? The rest of that winter was mild so there’s always hope... or straws 

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I remember thinking the same thing when we had that awful mild and wet November in 2009 Marcus.

Too early to be sure one way or another at the moment, IMO. November still has three weeks to go yet.

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Of course December 2010 had prevaling winds from the NE so here in Edinburgh we had copious amounts of snow. Even down in the city near the sea. Up in the southern suburbs we had 20cm + on the ground from the last few days of November until the end of December.

Many days of sunny spells and streamers of heavy snow showers coming into the Forth

Edinburgers were walking or skiing around the city. Most cars were snowed in for a month

I'm not sure I'll ever witness that again!

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I'm pretty sure that many of us here a little over a decade ago were wondering the same thing, Jerry. I know I was, although we had a pretty good foretaster of what December 2010 would bring when we had the month-long severe spell from just after mid-December 2009 until mid-January 2010.

Even the "Beast from the East" at the end of Feb/start of March 2018 showed us how severe wintry spells can and still do happen, and that one came right at the end of the meteorogical winter season. Sometimes our weather can still catch us out, and we can still get those dream winter conditions if the synoptics and other things play ball.

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Yes, I can also remember Arthur's Seat resembling something more like a skiing resort in the Alps at that time, given just how much snow we had then. Yet (perhaps rather surprisingly), those bus services which are provided by Lothian Buses were only suspended for one day due to the weather during that entire spell, whereas these same services were suspended for a number of days during the last Beast from the East event in February/March 2018.

 

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Couldn't agree more! Part of me feels that it's only November and we have 3 months or so to go - but another part of me feels we have been here before last year and year before is a prime example and only to be let down by endless southerly or south westerly winds for 3 whole months as well as record breaking zonal winds. Despite coming out of solar minimum and a negative IOD and a hyperactive Atlantic/Hurricane season we still manage to get the same old mild and wet dross.

My only thought would be the fact that it's down to the strong La Nina in the central part of the pacific region 3.4 as well as the above average SST's in the NE pacific as well as the failure of the easterly QBO. (AGAIN!) Also we are seeing temperatures at 10 and 30hpa plummet - the same in recent years so this is helping to power up the PV.

Anyone know why we are seeing temperatures in the stratosphere always colder /well below normal in recent autumn/winter months? Or is this a rhetorical question?

Met Office Glosea5 seasonal updated today so will be interesting to see what that says. But i agree it's not looking good. 😞

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I ask the same thing every year: What is the ideal set-up for a cold winter in the UK? Whenever we get a mild winter - which let's be honest is most years these days - x, y or z was wrong! Back in the 80s there was a reasonable expectation that most of lowland Britain would see at least some accumulating snow which would hang around for a few days or longer. Surely x, y or z was often "wrong" in some of those years but it didn't prevent decent cold snaps developing.  

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It's November 9th! 

But seriously, if it happens it happens. Cold snowy snaps often develop really quickly and irrespective of whatever 'background signal' and 'downstream/upstream patterns' are in play at any one time. 

 

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Yes it is , you are correct , but we are 3 weeks from December and I currently don't see anything that is giving any hope ( see Tally's post )

I'm not saying there wont be a cold snap ( 1, 2 or 3 days ) but with a forecast or zonal winds powering up , it gives me little to smile about .

Still might get out on the golf course with the clubs Santa is bringing 

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