Froze were the Days

Always amazes me the variations we get on our tiny Isle in such short distances...great to see some had good snow and no doubt will leave some brief fond memories of this winter...as for me had a dusting a few days back which turned icy and then went. (better than nothing I suppose).

Maybe the cold SST's in the Greenland/Iceland vicinity has aided some cyclogenesis in that area, we have certainly seen low pressure development at a higher latitude from the Canadian PV lobe in that area this January? I remember Gav P mentioning this before the winter and somebody else bringing up recent years Atlantic anomalies (2013 to now) and the cold anomaly continuing in the northern part of the North Atlantic.

Looks like I was right last week then when I said GFS/ECM ops firming up on trending 'mild' at day 9/10 - I was the Peter Kay of this thread. Is there a smug emoji?... By the way good post Catacol.

On the flip side other than January 2010 no outstandingly cold ones either...I think you can put 2014/16 and 18 all in the 'mild' bracket though.

Dreadful day here on the Essex riviera...just cold rain YUCK!

Yes there have been some 'colder' days and I use inverted comma's as here in the south east we've largely seen daily maxes over the last week or so still getting up to 4/5/6c which is not noteworthy though as mentioned in the above post there have been some consistent air frosts which have certainly made it feel seasonal (frosty grass, Icy puddles, ponds etc), but as a cold spell it's not up to much and Jan/Feb 2013 was better than this...off the top of my head trying to think of the last CET winter month that was below 1c...December 2010?

Didn't see much in a way of a wind reversal in our neck of the woods did we? in relation to the trop response to the SSW but it would be sods law that we'd see a quick response back to normal zonal winds

Hahahaha! ...think that was me (not sure who GTLTW is)?, yes far more chance of finding the fury fella than the beast from the east over the last 10 months or so (great picture by the way)...0z GFS gives us a crumb of hope again this morning (again) no doubt before dropping the signal on other runs and ecm 0z compared to yesterday's is relatively poor.

Chaos here this morning with thousands of children off school, here's one of the scenes down the local park. As you can see the snow was fairly deep!

I'll plump for 5.1c - I can see more Atlantic based weather than anything that cold.

I'm 'wintering' in the lesser known Burnham 'on Crouch' which is a river like a mud filled ditch after a flood (like my late Father used to say) - just north of Sarrfend on sea, any chances? or maybe some rain/sleet on the coast.

What like we've been hoping all this January

Cloudy in Heathrow? - that's all those BA airlines making a U-Turn back

Now that comes from a man who is not only a weather buff but also realistic when it comes to Britain's winters and he lives in France!...I will firmly take that as positive coming from Nick!...I'll hold you to account if it's all grass and tarmac tomorrow though I doth my cap in your general direction.

ah! love Portslade...my dad was evacuated there in the second world war (sorry off Topic). positive post for you there jackski4

I hope there not going within a 1000 miles of Illinois and the mid-west...snowflake airlines!

Another post just landed from me in the ramps and banter thread...another positive one from me (just for you) Between you and me I've been recording winter weather since 1983 (have a stevenson screen for recording temps, dew points)...I think by and large it's the amount of 'weather let downs' that has sculpted me this way)

Realism over positivism (just made that up) mate...I also have a strange sense of humour as you can tell, by the way I've been here since 2005!

Funny how only a day or so ago people were saying this was the 'main course'...well if that's the case that mouthful of Hors D'oeuvres was the equivalent of eating a rotten snail wrapped in lard.

Mary Nightingale on the ITV headline news this evening just mentioned the latest on 'the big freeze' hitting most of Britain then went on to interview a reporter on Bodmin (higher ground) in Cornwall where they've had a few inches and some not to unhappy motorists taking things a bit comically - crikey! talk about trying to make something into a news story. I think ITV news producers should be shifted off to Chicago...

As I said earlier don't expect anything out of the 12z...looks fairly poor

Don't expect anything to lift the hopes of an easterly from the 12z ecm tonight...the differences between the 0z and 12z have been like chalk and cheese towards FI in the last day or so.

About 1 cm on the Essex Riviera last night...soon melting in the sun, at least we had something but that's about all I can say.

I don't think you were...maybe in your head you dreamt that?

Cold hard rain here... none of that changing from one thing to another here rubbish, I like precipitation who knows what it is!