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PolarWarsaw
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Posts posted by PolarWarsaw
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This forum get's stranger and stranger by the year.
Let the seasons be seasons? Variety is indeed the spice of life?
Surely people don't come on a weather forum to actively search for and hope that high pressure and pleasantly mild days take over for 90% of the year? What's wrong with you? These type of posters are more suited to a lifestyle forum, not a weather one - as they clearly aren't fans of the actual weather. Since when was winter over before Mid Feb? We are statistically more likely to see cold weather and snow for the next 7 weeks, than we are at any other time of the year. Not an opinion, that's a fact .
Not sure if it's the internet era, the increase of people able to give an opinion or if it's a true indictment of our evolving 'social media, whiny, moany, weak, snowflake era' - but every single year it seems to get earlier and earlier where people start declaring winter over and waffling about spring time temperatures? When I first joined this forum 10+ years ago, you wouldn't see the first search/request for Spring until the final week of March.
Let's be realistic here, we live in the UK, beggars cannot be choosers - therefore a sloppy marginal snow event that delivers a covering of snow is very much on the table right out until the last couple of days of March. Keeping in mind most people would be content to take this. That's at least 7 more weeks where we are in with a chance of dealing with cold and snow.
As someone mentioned above, it's pleasantly mild enough for the vast majority of the year to allow for fair weather 'mother meetings' in the outdoors. What has happened to wanting seasons in seasons? On a weather forum? I don't want to think about 20c for one single second, right out into the middle of May. Much like by then I don't want to be dealing with frost and gloves until the end of October.
We very quickly these days transition from dark chilly days, right into the middle of summer. No middle, no spring - just all out of balance, it's wound up making summer feel extremely long and miserable. It happened in 2018 and the BBQ was out within days of lockdown being ordered last March - it's too long, too much, let's keep this thread interesting and active - something that won't happen as soon as it dries out and warms up. A season isn't a season if 1 weather type takes up 6-7 months of an entire year.
One thing I will say is, I've worked in retail for a while and the weather quite frequently trolls people at this time of year....Temperatures get into the mid teens and people walk about saying 'its very nice today out there, spring is here' - only to find that a week later and sometimes right late into March it's cold and frosty, the woolies are needed again and it was all just a false dawn.
Probably quite devious of me, but I always end up thinking 'ha suckers, where's your fair weather gone'. Not sure there'd be such universal positivity in this thread if roles reversed here and we saw Max temps of 10c and driving rain forecast for early August?! Let people enjoy a season without waffling on about something alternative at the first given chance.
Shake your heads folks, there's plenty of time for mild, mundane, summery, boring, sweaty, fair weather - it happens about 7 months of the year. March has twice in the last decade seen notable, memorable - 'best winter months'. Even if it does get mild for a few days, enjoy it - it could be the last 20c until the middle of May (we can live in hope, it shouldn't be that warm until then).
Here is to a year of actual seasons. Not cold into 7 months of mild summery weather.
Showery spring with lots of rainbows, stormy, warmish and wet summer followed by a wild and windy Autumn - into a bitter winter!
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What a really frustrating spell for most of us this has been. I knew the streamers would deliver next to zero for most of us away from the favoured eastern areas, but a snowy breakdown/slider should really have been on the table. If not more than that.
Still hopefully more opportunities to arise in the coming 6 weeks.
Its February the 9th, nobody should be thinking about Spring!
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1 minute ago, Gadje said:
Nothing? LOL.
From tomorrow yeah - it looks dry and cold for 90% of the country, even more so than what we have seen up to now.
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25 minutes ago, chris55 said:
Greece always gets all he cold eh....we are so unlucky ...
Oh wait a minute what's this chart for tomorrow all about ......
Bone dry and uncomfortably cold in an environment that screams 'snow event' - but couldn't be any less from delivering such at the surface.
A gigantic dig in the ribs as far as we should all be concerned.
The coldest uppers of the winter over our heads for 4/5 days and nothing....
About as much use as a Chocolate fireguard to protect your ice cream on the surface of the sun.
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This ECM is the exact reason why sometimes chasing snow and cold in an easterly away from the most favourable areas is very frustrating.
What happens is we get a couple of convective days and the models originally show the block being underestimated with the Atlantic pushing it away. The block nearly always fights back across the next couple of days extending 'surface cold' and keeping areas where snow has fallen colder for longer. Everybody then cries 'upgrade', the cold is fighting back!!!!!!! etc. We celebrate upgrades far too easily in the UK.
However, what has happened in this particular scenario and is more often than the case, is the block is remaining just strong enough to keep the Atlantic at bay, whilst dropping the convection and leaving most areas dry but cold. Because the block is then weakening and the disruption is poor, what we are left with from a cold spell is - a couple of favourable days of streamers for the east, most of the central/west remaining dry.
This is then followed by a dry/cold spell with harsh frosts for most of the country and then as the block finally weakens enough to let the Atlantic in the block pulls away taking it's cold uppers/surface cold with it and as a front finally makes it across the UK - it either brings mild sectors, delivers snow to rain or in what is looking most likely is just ushering the Atlantic and milder weather in with it.
In other words, most areas of the country end up looking east enviously and then misses any sort of snow event.
I tried mentioning last week that it's no use/is NOT an upgrade for the block to hang around and 'fight back' if it's not going to let the Atlantic in far enough, or just into that jackpot territory where sliders make it to roughly Manchester north and Lincolnshire east before fizzling out into the block (see March 2013, modest set up - snowiest month in decades).
3 or 4 days of bone dry and frosty weather isn't what we should be aiming for in an 'upgrade' - it would be better for the block to relent, allow the Atlantic in a bit quicker and then see if we can favourably align a fresh block a week or so later. As it is, this week will just go down as another wasted week of winter for most areas of the country and the extra 5 days or so of 'nothingness' is more time eaten away towards the silent mod thread chore of spring/summer.
I'm pretty sure @Catacol spoke words of truth a few days back when he said Macro scale patterns had been very good for the UK this year, but micro scale and the complete lack of a genuinely widespread snow event (note, not streamer or localised slider event) has been so dismal for us. At no turn have we 'scraped' something out of nothing this year. It feels like such a waste of what may end up being the opportunity of the winter to get something notably snowy for the large majority in.
Still, there's 6 week or so to go IMO - we really need to nail down a couple of snow events for this winter to not go down as the largest 'what could have been' winter in living UK memory. (Think how much has been in our favour this year).
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Not the best of charts this morning, although some rather dramatic responses in here. There's no sign of a Bartlett, or a raging zonal onslaught.
As soon as the pattern sorts itself out to our east, I think the path for the remainder of February will be sorted in one favour or another quite smoothly.
I do think it's absolutely vital we get a snowy breakdown in before the cold does eventually work away, it will be the difference between a cold spell remembered positively or one that has been one of the biggest let downs in the Netweather internet era. When exactly has happened this week? With -12 uppers , why is snow melting in the middle of the day? Why is the wind so light? Why is all convection dying out 50 miles inland? I have to say - not just the snow, but this whole week is feeling rather lame at the minute for a vast majority of this country. I'm shocked, I was expecting to feel a bit like the BFTE part 2 this week, but it's nothing like it.
On the whole though, I have to say I'm shocked that people are discussing Spring already?
These little undercurrents seem to get earlier each year. I can't decide if it's trolling or the latest reverse psychology frenzy? Winter is over in the middle of December, radiation brings us heatwaves as soon as February 15th arrives . It's February the 9th, discussing Spring would be like spending July 9th hoping/expecting Autumn is arriving.
March and late February frequently and have been for numerous years delivered the best cold/snowy spells. Given everything that's happened so far this winter, you would argue we are more likely than ever this year to be discussing winter a long way into March. I would not be surprised with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, for the weather to troll us and the general nation into an short sharp blast of 'spring' - only to dip us into a very cold and long March. We seem to end up doing this nearly every season.
Far too early to be giving up on Winter...as I say, would the BBQ go away on July 9th? No chance.
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This is painstaking.
The 12z ECM is about as boring as it could ever possibly be in the UK without being mild or wet.
Stinks of a dry and chilly couple of weeks. Time is ticking now.
Give me the GFS snowy breakdown.
Easterlies really are shoddy for us lot.
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2 minutes ago, SLEETY said:Well whats happenend in the last 24 hours? looks like this cold spell will be over by weekend with a southerly WIND ,and the high not migrating to a favoured position for another attack from the NE
So much for those mega cold looking charts from 36 hours ago,how disappointing.
Nothing?
There was a couple of model suites that showed some very cold charts.
Never concrete, never sustained - all deep into FI. Quite surprised to see people got even remotely giddy about them.
We are heading towards a dry/chilly spell - probaby to take us deep into the 3rd week of February.
8 minutes ago, Griff said:Pattern needs to shift west a few hundred miles... Gem and ecm will soon tell us or rather confirm where this looks to be heading.
Do we?
Not sure that's what central and western parts want to see. The craving and the 'need' now is for this winter to deliver a widespread snow event.
I'd rather take my chances on a widespread breakdown event than spend another 3 weeks building towards and easterly that delivers streamers across eastern areas - whilst the larger part of the country is freezing and bored senseless.
Time is running out, I'd sooner take the short term gains at this point and I don't think I would be on my own.
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20 minutes ago, Don said:
Most people visiting this thread today are those who have not got snow from this cold spell. I know if I had snow now, I doubt I would have visited this thread and would either be in the regional or outside enjoying it! Unfortunately it's back to the drawing board!
This can't technically be all true, there's a tiny minority of the country with snowfall deemed worthy of being outdoors in it.
It seems to be me that the outlook is moderate/poor/very poor and for those places that aren't currently getting snow (a lot more of the country than not) the chances of actually getting any are dwindling as every model suite is completed.
Seems odds on for us to get into a High pressure dominated scenario, possibly quite long lasting too. Not bad for surface cold, as for snow? Might as well be a Bartlett.
We desperately need a widespread snowy breakdown for the large majority of the UK to remember this spell.
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9 minutes ago, mr benn said:
I get that you guys love the snow and weather things, but this year lets hope that we get as much mild weather for a few months at least to help get the vaccines out to people.
There is categorically zero chance, that a few days of cold weather is going to delay a vaccination process on this scale.
It might 'slightly' hamper it in tiny minorities for the worst hit areas, but cold weather alone will not deter anyone determined enough to go out and get it, the road network is fine.
What is more likely is that as the vaccination increases, people will disregard rules, go back to 'normal' and then we will see another peak of cases, delaying lockdown into middle summer. Such is how thick our nation is, on the whole.
Back to the weather - heavier shower here, leaving a small covering on roofs - puddles on the paths/roads now.
Further hampering any chance of accumulation here.
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11 minutes ago, feb1991blizzard said:
Its because the next chance of cold is on the verge of capitulation, the people who are where its snowing now are in regionals, the people who don't probably are confident that they need a miracle 12z suite so are waiting for those, one way another, It will go into overdrive at 1600 hours this afternoon, either for good or bad.
Was it even a chance though? There was only a small handful of runs that showed an extension of cold in the snowy/notable sense was on the table.
To me we are heading out of this moderate 'cold spell' into a dry/high pressure dominated spell - unfortunately, this is the wrong time of the year for that to take shape as it will take us out towards the end of February without a true nationwide snow event.
We need to be looking for ways to increase the chances of a widespread snowy breakdown, to make up for the total non event of this week - certainly in the case of virtually all away from favourable eastern areas. It's a shame this week looks like being 'the spell we have waited for' after everything that's been on the table this winter.
It won't be long before the mildies are out in force with 'Spring' posts.
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6 minutes ago, snowtimenow said:
Why the Amber warning ??? Nothing to shout about here Mansfield
The warnings have been a professional joke since they failed to deal with the slider a few Sunday's back.
Even then, they added an amber warning when the event had all but ended.
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5 minutes ago, Arctic Hare said:
Here in N Worcs there was a dusting overnight, which has mostly evaporated now. Occasional showers of very small flakes, but that's all. Nothing remotely approaching another dusting, let alone a covering. We look to be in between two streamers here, and that's how it goes sometimes. Not too upset though as my hopes weren't that high for this far west. Currently 1.3 °C.
Unless you enjoy dandruff, then 95%+ of what you are missing isn't worth looking at out of the window.
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What a pathetic spell this is turning out to be. Not a patch on the BFTE, it doesn't even feel that cold.
Dandruff has been blowing around in the wind since last night, nothing sticking - floors damp/wet - no accumulation later as the showers are too weak/small,
The showers look good on radar but are absolutely nothing by the time they get this far in land.
Worst thing of all is that any widespread breakdown snow is constantly put back further SW, meanwhile we stay dry and chilly with HP in charge and another week or 2 of winter is gone. People seem to actually be wanting this to prolong the agony of a weak Scandi HP that will deliver no snow and steal more time from us.
Still this is a modest easterly, accumulating snow above 1-2CM is a 10/1 shot for most of this area this week. No surprise really, forecasters are abysmal.
To think some were content to watch Storm Darcy drift further away from our region to increase 'convection'
Useless.
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1 minute ago, MattStoke said:
Just like last weekend’s low was going to completely miss the Midlands and not get past Bristol Didn’t deliver much but you were miles off with that prediction (literally).
There was absolutely zero snow here last weekend mate, certainly not what was being shown/discussed at the time we were talking about it.
I'm sure there will be the odd shower that makes it here and a couple of places will receive a coating, but it's really not worth all the hype/discussion/effort/energy that's been put into this entire spell.
For me, I'm just looking at a snowy breakdown now. If we can squeeze a trough or front in the mean time, fantastic.
Even 2010 wasn't great here - our best and most productive set up are battleground events.
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43 minutes ago, sheikhy said:
Fantastic ecm 12z up to 168 hours!!this is how i expected the 144 hour chart to look on ukmo but i dunno what happened lol!!!also winds are east north east from 48 hours to 144 hours so more areas getting in the act for snow showers!!!ukmo a bit to south east right now!
We need to be looking more in the next 3/4 days for troughs and upgrades rather than worrying about T168 mate. It says a lot that this time period is the hottest of topics is weather at Day 7-8. We've spent weeks working towards the next 5 days and now we have arrived it's all as flat as a pancake for our area.
No doubt about it there will be a few showers and probably a surprise or 2 - but significant, this will not be for our area.
I'd sooner take a large snow event that lasted a day and turned back to rain/melted - than I would tonight's ECM, which is dry and then instead of being in the game for a battleground snowfall, we stay cold and frosty. Abysmal outcome. We might as well have had a Bartlett.
All this hype and weeks of chasing, for what is, in effect going to feel like a UK high for our neck of the woods.
It's cack.
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4 minutes ago, sheikhy said:
For the west mids perfect!!east mids zilch!!!!happy for u if it happens though mate!!
It won't happen like that mate.
Try not too worry. Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire are still the most favourable areas of the midlands to see accumulating snow.
It is a shame to see less snow and a shorter event forecast right at the last moments we have seen huge downgrades. So disappointing after nearly two weeks of build and analysis.
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21 minutes ago, Jason74 said:
I will laugh my socks off if the SE miss out.
I have to say, it really gripes me when 'the usual suspects' - IE those north of the M4 get snow events aplenty and what feels like the entire of the Mod thread is whining and moaning about how it would be nice for 'the entire of the country to be involved'.
Considering the tables are now fully turned, I'm finding it quite satisfying to re-dress the balance of the over hyping nonsense going on.
Most of the country is having a couple of cold dry days before mild and rain wins out.
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17 minutes ago, sheikhy said:
And then i look at the ukmo between 72 and 120 hours and winds are south easterly which means maybe not as much shower activity with drier air of the continent!!
Yes, substantial, notable and huge downgrades are unfolding at speed with every passing model suite for those not right near the east coast. At this rate even the likes of Leicester are going to be wondering what all the fuss is about.
If these were Northerly winds, this thread would be calling 'Winter is over' - as London might see a flake, it's all stations go.
Really average event being signposted for a vast swathe of the entire nation as we speak.
Certainly not a widespread notable SNOWY event that some have been discussing.
Huge disappointment after 2 entire weeks of micro analysis and what felt like 1 million hurdles to jump.
Let's hope for some later upgrades.
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3 minutes ago, Djdazzle said:
Anyone calling the cold spell over at the end of the week is being a bit premature. The block is putting up a bit more of a fight it seems.
I don't think anyone has said that the cold spell won't last longer, it just doesn't look likely.
The key issue up for debate here, is whether we can upgrade any breakdown, or bring troughs into the spine of the country away from the East.
For a larger majority of the country this is looking like a total non event and a 1-2CM snizzle covering, isn't notable either.
That's the main focus of this evening.
It would be a shame to go an entire winter without some sort of 'widespread' snowy spell.
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The main focus of this evening's 12z are the angle at which a breakdown approaches - for those likely to miss out on the snow of any note (probably 70% of the nation) away from the far east and south, this is going to be the main aim of any snowfall hopes. We are unfortunately, going to need to annoy those in south by most likely turning their snow to rain so we can get in on the act.
Before then, as you were - showers in the east with decent accumulations. Manchester, Birmingham and right south to the Coast and all areas west likely to stay predominantly white with frost being what covers the paths.
All a bit of a non-event away from Eastern coasts, Cold and dry is as much of a waste of winter as Mild and Bartlett.
Meh. Vast upgrades needed for Central and Western areas for this to be any other than a standard winter event.
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Have to say, it's very much 'What's the fuss' for those far away from the eastern edge of the Midlands. Notable how it's all stations go in the MOD thread isn't it - with London and the SE involved. If this was a Northerly you would be hearing winter is over every 10 minutes.
Probably too far west for most of us from Derbyshire/Leicestershire west and then either too far north for any battleground snowfall.
As it is currently, it looks like any mild air would quickly follow a marginal battleground snowfall.
Pretty miserable set up overall for vast swathes of the country, you just wouldn't know it because London might see a flake.
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9 minutes ago, Lukesluckybunch said:
Not a chance it doesn't even look like a slider,this is looking more and more like a mini cold spell from sunday-wednesday.not even that severe in my oppinion,I think people have gone over the top
There is still a long way to go before deciding whether that will go under or not.
In general I'm in agreement though.
Obviously convection might get quite far west, but for larger swathes of the country than not, this looks like a 'cold' event with the chance of occasional showers and frost. If the shoe was on the other foot and this was a Northerly, rather than Easterly it would be being treated completely differently.
In the balance of fairness, unless we get a considerable slider event that falls favourably for central, western, south western and the far south coast areas - this is looking more and more like NOT being a SNOWY spell. Plenty of time for that to change though. Talk of historic cold spells and record snowfall is massively premature and IMO is at least 99% likely to lead to a lot of disappointment.
Congratulations to those in the East and South east though who have missed out so far.
PS - Before someone says, 1-2CM's isn't a notable event.
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45 minutes ago, Blessed Weather said:I'm not sure where you are getting your information from IDO. Have you any links to sources please?
You are correct that the original timeline for replacement of GFS v15 was Q2 2021 and that has slipped to Q4 2021, but all I can find is a statement from NOAA that during parallel trials in Sept 2020 v16 had operational problems that caused the program to crash when modelling excessive vertical velocities (>300 m/s). Maybe this problem delayed the original timeline?
Original timeline from May 2019:
Crashes Sept 20:
As for v16 performance, it seems to out-perform v15 on many aspects according to NOAA stats. Even Ryan Maue back in July 20 using back-of-a-fag-packet comparisons of 47 runs said "Not a game changer. Marginal improvement, if any."
Ryan Maue tweet:
NOAA comparisons of v16 and v15 performance:
Source: https://ufscommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/UFS_Webnair_GFSv16_20201022_FanglinYang.pdf
In short, @IDO is stubbornly refusing to let go of his beloved (and useless) Day 10-12 GFS means.
The GFSp is verifying as good, if not marginally better than the GFS. It's turning into the operational and the GFS as we know it, is gone, without fail - it's happened. Get over it.
Even with that said, it still doesn't out-perform the ECM/UKMO statistically so, it will still be looked upon as the weak/fodder model - always will.
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Winter 2020/21 chat, ramps, moans and banter
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted · Edited by PolarWarsaw
Absolutely fantastic, I'm over the moon to see the record breaking warmth has become an almost 'cold spell' like downgrade, to nothingness. We do not want 20c to become part of February in our future climate.
There is a time and place to see 18-20c and that's the middle of May right to the end of August. Although that started in March last summer/most years now and seems to end into October! You fair weather 'mild fans' - really get to enjoy the weather you want for the vast majority of the year - spoilt! All bar a handful of days of the year are 'mild' enough not to be cold. I just want the 'envelope' shortening for 20c to be possible in our climate/year. Much like I'm sure most people don't want to see Frost on their gardens in August - warmth in February/March/April needs to feel very limited or else you run the risk of losing traditional seasonal feels and certain parts of the year feel like a meteorological chore.
For me personally, my enthusiasm from a young age for the weather came from being able to enjoy 4 different seasons. Variety, changing weather and not getting stuck into 'patterns' for more than a few days. Since the last 10+ or so years seem to want our climate to become an extension of summer and autumn - that dampens my interest in following something that's been a hobby for as long as I can remember. Praying for dry, warm, mild weather isn't such a bad thing, but when that happens every day for months and people still spend their time moaning it's not hot enough, or dry enough, or it might rain in 5 days for half an hour. It's just a celebration of 'non weather', nothing to discuss, nothing to be excited or interested in, no analysis - just boredom. It's no surprise that this thread is virtually complete silence from April to October. The above, is, in sporting terms, similar to declaring yourself the worlds biggest lover of football - only to be happy when your team draws 0-0 in every single game for a league season.
No signs of a cold shot at the moment, or indeed anything particularly mild from the models. I wouldn't be surprised to see some spring like weather in between periods of frost and cold, not especially wet. With how weak the vortex is this year, I can see us staying benign and chilly right out to near May before a quick flip to a very hot and dry Summer.
PS - I understand the need this year to be able to get out of your house with some warmer weather and everything that's going on with Covid. However, I will say;
1) Covid restrictions aren't going to change much for months to come yet - regardless of it feeling a little milder. So don't apply positive slant towards warmer weather being a way out of these restrictions.
2) If you are going to let a bit of rain/wind/chill stop you going for fresh walks, running or just generally being out doors - then not being able to do that, clearly isn't THAT important enough to you, to spend time moaning about missing it on the internet. Stick a jacket on, or trainers with extra grip, an extra layer on, walk when you can't run. Come on now folks, let's 'get a grip' as a nation.