Steve C

Interesting west to east and narrow feature on the radar currently - moving south.

Fantastic picture. Yours?

Boxing Day evening would make sense. It definitely snowed heavily in the evening and a winter wonderland was there the next day. Obviously NW London isn't a long way from Maidenhead either.

No doubt where you are, but 2010 snow depths weren't a patch on Feb 79, Jan 87 or Feb 91 where I live.

Going back to the tsar bomba question. I think I read somewhere that the amount of energy we receive from the Sun in one month is about equivalent to the energy released in the Chicxulub dinosaur extinction event - circa 100M megatons. This is about 2M X tsar bomba, or tsar bomba energy in a little over a second. With the absence of much dust being thrown into the atmosphere, I'm sceptical that tsar bomba could have been a big factor in the '63 winter.

Just after Christmas 1978 - might have been Boxing Day, or maybe a day or so later - very heavy snow in the Maidenhead area, where as a young kid we'd gone to spend Christmas with an aunt. My first experience of very deep snow. Went home to a "pipe freezer"- pipes split, with tubes of ice supporting the metal. Body heat, flooded house... A reasonable amount of snow at home, but nowhere near what they'd had in Maidenhead.

I wouldn't go as far as to say "moaners" but we have loads of options now, if we want to avoid certain forecasters and have a (hopefully) decent forecast. I find it interesting that people really laud Rob McElwee. I appreciate he was (is) very good, but I found him too concise, in the pre internet days of no access to weather models. He'd say things like "and the outlook is interesting!" when finishing his forecasts with a grin. I could generally guess what he was saying, but found myself thinking "for goodness sake, please elaborate more!"

Have skimmed the detailed thread and will properly read later ( mini smart phone and eyesight issue in last year) but wow! Fantastic work and a valuable piece of work for students of meteorology IMHO.

Thanks guys for your hard work. Much appreciated. Have read the summary and will read the detail when home. Certainly looks like interesting weather might be coming up!

I've a hunch, which I've had for a couple of weeks, that we might see something nasty, storm wise, between about 2nd and 5th December. I think the current charts are conducive to storm development as well, although specifics are at too long a range at the moment. I think there may be a meteorological bullet or two to dodge. I hope I'm wrong. Violent winds no longer excite me (although I find them very impressive)

I can't believe people get so hot under the collar with what a TV forecaster says, or their facial expressions; as if their forecasts make a blind bit of difference... Let's face it, if they were showing unbridled delight in forecasting extreme weather, they wouldn't be in employment for long as presenters, as the general public don't really like extremes. They're not aiming their forecasts for weather aficionados after the BBC News. Change of subject... Matt, are you contributing to the NW Forecast this year?

Really? Are you asking the guy to forecast a similar winter to the coldest one in the best part of 300 years here (and the World has warmed in the last 50 years too, for whatever reason) I look forward to your prediction coming off...

I kind of agree. I like a reasonable cover of dry snow that lasts for a while - I don't ask for much then in SE England. I dislike sleet with a passion (unless it's transitional...) I'm not really a fan of slushy stuff either - when you walk in it, you immediately leave a dark imprint of your footwear and all around is dripping. Yuk!

I think it's (Saturday) more interesting in being a very rough early Winter's day. Windchill, very strong winds, rain / sleet / snow mix etc. Horses for courses though.

Excellent!

Not really the place for this, but undoubtedly there will be stratospheric elements in it... When (or if) will the NW Winter forecast be issued this year? Always a good read.

GFS 06Z shows a severe northerly gale blasting down the east coast on Saturday morning. http://www.xcweather.co.uk/GB/forecast

Terrible! Disgusting attitude of the person who hit her. My sympathies.

I hadn't read the article. Thanks for posting. I'd gone out for a morning walk during St. Jude's, with the aim of taking photos (and not waiting to see if fence panels etc. blew over at home) I got caught in the worst of it in a wooded area, when the roar through the trees was horrendous. I could also hear large cracks and was well aware of the possibility of trees falling. I had the camera filming, but the footage was unusable, due to massive camera shake (nervous) the camera swinging about wildly, as I was concerned that this or that tree might crush me and also my swearing and self admonishment... Several reasonable sized trees fell in the two or three minutes I was there; one taking out overhead cables. Locally Clacton's helter skelter blew down and power was quite widely out for much of the day - although I only suffered 30 minutes and was able to bring flasks of hot water to needy people. Just reading about it on Wiki last night, it mentioned tremendous windspeeds recorded at the Gunfleet Sands Windfarm. As the crow flies that's only 10 miles away from here. Frankly I don't believe the numbers reported there, but it would have been good to have had an official measurement taken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jude_storm

Really? I'm actually expecting a worse storm this cold season, where I live, unfortunately. October 2002 was a lot stronger here than yesterday's effort (gusts roughly 60mph last night) which is the sort of storm I'd expect on an annual basis.

Possibly for your area, but no way for where I live. The most appropriate weather station for my area recorded a 78mph gust during St Judes. However none of these events comes close to some of the powerful autumn / winter storms that I've experienced here (okay St Judes was a monster in Denmark...) Three in the last forty years were a league above this and St Judes. It'd be interesting if another really powerful winter storm occurred again soon (although I don't want it to happen - too much worry about trees falling and property damage etc.)

Luton Airport has had a 60mph gust (ooh ee ooh!) And Lakenheath 63mph

I think the Met Office have called it right; a yellow warning. Nothing more needed IMO. As Ben has said, very windy, but it's seasonal and nothing unusual.

As strong as it's been here on the coast so far - likely force 8. A few places have approached 60mph in gusts, eg - Andrewsfield and Cranwell, so far. The closest place I can see that's exceeded 60 is East Midlands Airport. A few places will likely exceed 60mph around here, but I don't expect much strengthening from this point. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/maps/current?LANG=en&UP=0&R=310&TYP=windspitzen&ART=tabelle&LANG=en&DATE=1447792200&KEY=UK&LAND=UK&CONT=ukuk&SORT=3&SI=mph&CEL=C&UD=1 Could be time for a drive...

I can imagine a few people here are refreshing the XCWeather Map, to see if the 76mph max changes... Can't do it myself, as off out for a while.