Chesil View

In Absence of True Seasons What is the average annual rainfall for your area and how much have you had so far this year.

Just keep twisting the knife winter of 2024 why dont you..

As usual for the past few months the road to getting any genuine deep cold to the UK is proving a long and tortuous one.

Ecm has some trough disruption to our west and some cold air coming round the Scandi High at the end. Only ten days to reel it in.

Met4Cast This is so true Met4Cast. And I think why some posters incorrectly poo poo the background signal or global drivers. On a global scale the UK is tiny and to expect a Pacific based signal like the mjo to be able to forecast snow in Croydon is absolutely ridiculous. As you say at best they give a broadbrush picture of the probabilities of what regimes may hold sway. My personal feeling is that CC may probably making things like the mjo composites that we have relied on in the past somewhat less reliable. Which if anything will make the great work by the likes of Tamara. Blessed weather and yourself among others even more difficult. Rather like Catacol I am also becoming more convinced that without a proper SSW as opposed to technical SSW any extended or severe winter spells are unlikely to occur. That is not say to we won't get snowfall even in south but I think what we do get will be shortlived without SSW. I have not seen a decent depth of settled snowfall here in South Dorset since 31st Jan 2019. I'm sure I will see some more at some point but when? is the 64,000 dollar question.

Time for me to call it a day for this winter from a southern snow lovers point of view. Its been a frustrating one promising much but delivering very little of substance. Even the northerly progged around day 10 just means cold wet instead of warm and wet. The weather will probably continue to take the pee and bring a blizzard in April but I can't be bothered to sit through another 6-8 weeks of daily runs to see great looking synoptics with uppers that won't cut the mustard.

Eagle Eye That was exactly my point and why I made it with the greatest of respect.

TEITS Very true Teits. I think part of the problem is that SSW and the strat has moved into the simplistic media world added to this that we have had two gold standard ssw responses in the relatively recent past Dec 2010 and feb/march 2018. The former providing the coldest Dec in a hundred years and the latter the coldest such spell at thst time of year since 1845 and it is easy to see how everyone gets carried away. Add into the mix biased twitter based commentators and the hype just increases. Even the oft quoted 66% figure bringing cold to the UK is I feel somwhat disengenuous as a dumping of snow on the usual suspects in Scotland and Northern High ground in England can be classed as bringing cold and snow to the UK. For me the test of a cold spell (and this is honestly not just because of my location) is if a cold outbreak brings deep cold and /or snow to lowland southern England because then it is out of the ordinary and beyond the realm of a bog standard chilly outbreak with snow on high ground in the usual places. As you say Tamara's unbiased posts that are made with out a required emotional outcome are valuable in keeping ones feet on the ground although even here Tamara's suggested shuffling hieghts scenario has not really come to fruition either and I say that with greatest of respect because it simply goes to show how ultra sensitive our uk based outcomes are to small changes in the background drivers.

Weatherman_93 It really isn't that unusual for temps to hit 16c with a longfetch southerly or south-westerly in February. Not common I grant you but not that unusual. we have already hit 15.9 on 3rd.

It's frustrating being stuck in this holding pattern waiting for possible ssw fallout at the end of the month and into March while the modelling waxes and wanes as to how that may play out.

Any ridging attempts just getting steam rollered at the moment on the ecm.

RJBingham

RJBingham But not before it had brought me this.

I think the extended outlook is just the meto covering their backsides regarding possible ssw fallout. Let's face it pretty much every one on every weather forum knows an ssw is in the offing. If we were perchance to get a major dumping as a result and they hadn't even mentioned colder northerlies or easterlies and the possibility of snow fall on the boundary with milder intrusions they'd get roasted alive in the media.

Looks like a long drawn out process to get to anything cold. Even if the ecm is on the money. We would still be waiting for that UK high to progress to Scandinavia or retrogress to Greenland /Iceland. Not impossible given the likely ssw but wait and see.