Atleastitwillbemild

lassie23 You bet it can.

Fen Wolf I am so completely up for this. Deadly serious about it too. Can we make that happen? I'm happy to be someone's live-in cleaning lady (boy)

DTHFCJ Your optimism has a tragic tinge to it.

CryoraptorA303 Thank you for that explanation it was really insightful. Hopefully the nightmare ends soon but predictions for march are less than optimistic. I'm sorry you have to deal with the brunt of everyones weather related grumpyness. I bet some customers are obnoxious in the extreme. I'd hate aving to deal with that. I just come on here for my insane rambling rants! e have just been really, really unlucky. IIRC the months leading up to the 2022 heatwave were anomalously dry. This may be a very heavy handed pay pack. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all this water led to a gloriously flowery and green spring? I remember late May/early June last year was the most glorious Ive ever seen the country looking. It was paradise for about 3 weeks. We know what happened after that. I should just be patient and wind my neck in. And stop blaming the dull weather for all my mood disorder issues. Although I think it should take some of the blame for sure. God I miss blue skies. BlueSkies_do_I_see I do have a holiday planned for June. It seems so long away. The weather may have changed by then (god help us if it hasn't) The retirement fund is a great idea! If only Brexit hadn't put the kybosh on emmigration. I want to be a climate refugee! Going in the opposite direction. The camper van might be the next best thing. Just literally follow then sun on wheels!

SunSean 2012 was an extraordinarily bad year but the sheer longevity of this nightmare is unprecedented for me and I am 40 years old. Never lived through anything like it. Never will again if I can get the hell away from here in the next 5-10 years. I will never subject myself to this again if I can help it. Almeria looks like a good place to retire to for me.

In Absence of True Seasons This logic that I use on myself for hope is the only thing keeping me sane right now. I mean, it HAS TO end at some point......right?

In Absence of True Seasons This. The forecasts are laughable at this point. Truly pathetic. Every single projection of dryness or sun gets downgraded every singe time. Its like they just chuck in the odd sun symbol in for a laugh. I know they're automatically updated as computer models change but I swear there is some human input where they put some sun symbols in just for deocration. You can actually watch it downgrade hour by hour. First a full sun. Then a partly cloudy symbol with sun. Then white cloud with no sun. Then a dark cloud. Then just rain. The met office are hilariously useless right now.

SunSean Fed up? I am way past that. Easterlies that don't materialise are frustrating. Good winter synpoptics with no cold air to tap into is annoying. Missing a good thunderstorm in the summer as it passes by another town next to you is disappointing. But this s**t ? Our stupid miserable little patch of p**s island becoming mysteriously, maddeningly high pressure repllent for months and months on end with no mercy ? Pretty much unforgivable. To me this nightmare started in November 2022. February and June 2023 were two very welcome respite months but even the mercy of an occasional dry month seems to be off the menu now. Its been non stop darkness, gloom and endless rain since July and it has destroyed my relationship with this country. Granted I am massively projecting all my mental health problems on to this weather. I'd probably be a little less angry and desperate if I hadn't had one of the worst periods of anxiety and depression I've ever experienced during the last year but I truly believe I would not have had such a hard time with it if the weather hadn't been so oppressively, aggressively dull. Its a very unfortunate coincidence that the bad weather and my bad health have paralleled quite precisely but I don't think its that much of a coincidence. All I really needed was a week or two of sunny weather to balance out the gloom and waited so patiently for it and day after day after miserable day it just plays out like some endless nightmare. "Its been a bit unsettled" This rant probably seems overly extreme and tbh it is, but most people don't realise how much weather and sunlight levels really affect people with mental health issues. I just watched yet another cheery, breezy met office upload on the tube where another presenter stands there cheerfully announcing "another band of low pressure moving in" grinning ear to ear, as if the total lack of high pressure anywhere near this godawful island for the past 10 months is the most normal, unremarkable thing in the world. Nothing extraordinary about it. Totally fine! No explanation of why. No comiseration or acknowledgement of how much we're suffering because of it. Not a glimmer of hope offered. The Northern blocking and projected easterly is likely to bring nothing but damp, gloomy murk. Or as they like to cheerfully refer to it as "rather unsettled". Why is it so hard to get a stupid lump of high pressure to sit over us for five minutes? It shouldn't be as impossible as this. And to be honest I've f*****g had it. I know of course that atmospheric systems don't have a mind of their own and don't do things with deliberate intent but its really hard not to take this total denial of sunlight that I'm desperate for personally. I'm done. I used to love this country and defended it quite passionately to critics but I am finished with it. I will dedicate the rest of my life to getting as far away from this nightmare hell of an island and will never come back. This slightly crazed and irrationally angry rant was brought to you by low serotonin and weather being "a bit unsettled".

LetItSnow! I don't mind the lows, I just remember a time when they were occasionally interrupted by a few weeks of highs! Even in the winter! High pressure over the UK seems to have become a completely extinct phenomenon. Its extraordinary. If this is the future then I will be among the few climate refuges heading south!

Sherry You do realise that due to our position on the globe, warming temperatures aren't actually going to make our winters any less dark right? Our winters are dark because of our high lattitude. The "frosty crap" you mentioned hating so much in winter actually makes the winters brighter and sunnier, as the skies are clearer. Guess what will happen to our dark winters when global warming makes them wetter during the winter solstice? Bye, bye sun. You might not have thought this through. If it was making our country a drier, sunnier place then you certainly wouldn't hear me complaining. But it isn't is it? We're facing a nationwide flooding crisis, none have us have seen the sun for more than a few hours for months, the soil on farms is eroding and washing away making growing produce difficult and then food prices will go up. Whatever few bob we save on heating will soon be offset when our farms can't grow food and our homes are being destroyed. The future appears to be very, very wet and grey.

Rain All Night Its comical isn't it? I know atmospheric pressure doesn't have sentience or agency but its really hard not to imagine our climate as either profoundly stupid or an evil genius cackling with glee as it sets up the PERFECT winter synoptics for easter holidays.

Sherry I don't think anyone is after a winter wonderland at this point we just need it to be dry, and at this time of year that usually coincides with a cold spell. An early spring is not good for nature either. You don't want blossom on trees and sprouting produce getting killed by that inevitable stupid Easter blizzard. I think most of us would chop their arm off for two weeks of frosty high pressure right now.

Frigid I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you thought winter 03/04 was a subtropical nightmare of elevated moisture and unseasonable warmth then boy does climate change have a sweet treat in store for you next winter.

Summer8906 I "liked" this post only becasue it really speaks the truth about how horrific this situation is, but it was a depressing read. I'm glad someone is actually reacting sensibly to this nightmare. And for those of us with SAD it really is a seemingly never ending nightmare. I watch the Met office deep dives on Youtube and its like something out of the twilight zone. The sheer lack of acknowledgment of how unusual the weather since July has been is starting to become bizzare. They just keep referring to this godawful crap as "rather unsettled" and show no human sign of sympathy or regret when announcing "more rain" No human display of comiseration for the country they're delivering this news to, not even a cringe or a grimace. Just stupid cheerful smiles. I don't know if they're just trying not to panic the general public, determined to keep some British stone faced professionalism or what. But you'd think, at least on the 15 minute "deep dives" there'd be some acknowledgment of the sheer amount of water that has fallen from the sky since July last year and the surely unprecedented lack of high pressure. I've had about 5 or 6 sunny days since July. I've never lived through anyting like it. But they just keep cheerfully and casually delivering news of yet another low pressure system to add to the 374 that have crossed over us, obliterated the sun and caused most of the country to look like Bangladesh as if its the most normal thing in the world. Its starting to really irritate me. Not least because of the constant downgrading of dry, sunny weather promised at the 7-10 day rang on their absurdly useless app. Are any of the presenters, at any point, going to say "This is weird, we're in trouble, this is not normal. Its making us miserable too, sorry to all the farmers, homeowners and anyone sick to the bottom of their stomachs of rain, and we promise not to stand there like grinning idiots when pointing to another low heading towards us" ? This irrational and emotionally unstable rant was brought to you by low serotonin, SAD and depression.

cheese Or we could have a bit of alternating mix and variety like I seem to remember us having. A crap week followed by a nice weekend, a few days of sunny frost then a rainy week. One day sunny the next wet. What happened to that? Now we have a three month drought follwed by 6 months of rain. A month of clear skies followed by 4 months of daily gloom. We get stuck in patterns now that wont move for weeks and weeks and in the winter this variety and fast turnover of weather systems seems to have become completely absent.

*Stormforce~beka* I have dual citezenship as my Parents are Italian. I just need to learn how to speak it! I also have family in connecticut, USA. Shame they're not in California. Typical Italians flocking to the eastern seaboard! I'd prefer Spain though. Cold enough in winter for snow in the mountains and high sunshine levels. Perfect really. I might regret that during a 40 degree heatwave but I'd always compare it to the hostile, angry gloom that seems to relish in inflciting misery on those who live underneath it here. Its my new life goal. I love the culture and history of the UK but its hard to appreciate when you are driving up the A419 at 90mph trying to chase a patch of broken sky with sun poking through on the horizon before it sets at 4pm!

*Stormforce~beka* It really is! Usually I go on big long rants about how awful our climate is to people and they just look at me like I'm mad but tellingly this year they have all agreed and joined in! Everyone is fed up. I usually use a lightbox during this time but have had to stop as it has started causing me insomnia. Only about 4 more weeks of this and March should bring some relief, hopefully. Stay strong and make the most of any 3 - 5 minute period of watery, weak sunlight we may be mercifully granted !

reef I've noticed, for the 2023 period as a whole that I am located right under that lovely little blob of grey just in the upper left corner of that south-east quadrant. I should probably be grateful that I'm not wherever that triple grey blob is on the south coast of Kent. Anti-depressant prescriptions in that region must increased ten-fold. I know our perceptions don't alwats match the stats but it really feels like the sun has been absent for such unusually long periods. Probably because my mental health is so crap and all that grey gloom feels like an extra heavy weight to carry so I probably feel it more than I would if my serotinin levels were higher.

raz.org.rain Oh yes! Let's bring on my long time favourite: the stupidly useless late winter SSW! Pointless, snowless cold March and April followed by a feezing, wet, gloomy May. Three cheers for the Northerly blocking in spring!

Well. There was me hoping that with a new year, we could put the nightmare trainwreck that was 2023 behind us and return to something a bit more normal in terms of sunshine levels but no, this waking nightmare of eternal, relentless gloom just goes on and on and on and on and interminably f*****g on. Grey skies monday, grey skies tuesday, and the rest of the week, and the week after that. I am 40 years old and I have never lived through an 18 month period of such soul destroying darkness and grey gloom. I'd need to research this but surely we must have shattered records for low sunshine levels during this period. It must be absolutely unprecedented. I've never lived through such a period of low sunshine levels like this in all my life. It's making everyone I know angry, depressed, lethargic. I'm going to invest all my effort over the next few years of my life to emigrating elsewhere. I'm done with this. I am going to be one of the only "climate refugees" over the next twenty years who will actually move towards the desert. I will happily never see another drop of rain for the rest of my life.

We're all aware of global warming here thank you. Hence my sarcastic references to the let down being a "shocker" that noone could have predicted (I.e it was very predictably going to happen) Naybe the sacrasm didn't come over well. But my specific moan was the remarkable persistence of cloud and rain despite the high pressure and the inaccurate confidence of the forecasting for sunny spells. Also I might add that considering how frigid Scandinavia is right now getting temps below freezing at night should not have been impossible despite background warmimg. It was over confidence in the synoptic patterns being shown 8 to 10 days in advance that sucked everyone in yet again that let us down. My main gripe is the lesson in ignoring anything past 96 hours which none of us seem to be able to learn. We're just addicted to FI eye candy. It's a toxic pastime.

Im not sure why I "liked" that, I guess it was a like of sympathy. It really is just a f*****g joke isn't it? Sorry man

Well as others have said: this cold spell is fizzling out into a bit of a pathetic non-event isn't it? Who could have possibly have forseen that? What a shocker! Big, fat, lump of high pressure, winds from the east and STILL: Temps well above freezing at night for most of the week here in Wiltshire. Somehow seeing rain again this evening after looking forward to today being the start of some much needed respite. Murky gloom and high cloud being forecasted for a lot of this week as others have said, a major downgrade in sunshine levels in the forecast: surprise, surprise, surprise. Not like they've been consistently inaccurate with their forecasts for clear/sunny weather throughout the whole of 2023 or anything. I don't even bother to take any promises of sunny spells seriously anymore. I fully expect them to disappear/downgrade and they always reliably do. I was once chastised by somone on here for not appreciating the massive leaps and bound meteorology has taken towards knowledge and accuracy over the past 30 years but tbh; I can't see any evidence of that whatsoever. Can't even guarantee a sunny day 5 days in advance. I'm pretty sure they were actually more accurate about that 20 years ago. Well looks like we're nailed on for the kind of "cold spell" that would have been considered pleasantly mild 15 years ago with plenty of grey dull cloud to replenish our serotonin stores and probably the odd bit of rain just to ensure we don't lose that healthy mould growing on the inside of our lungs. This is what we get for wetting our knickers and licking our lips like a dog at a barbecue over all these delicous coldmageddon charts that were never going to verify. Despite all the assurances that it was "nailed on". Another lesson absolutely none of us will learn.

Hey look I mean, we do hit the jackpot sometimes. And I admire all the hard work that goes into trying to crack the code of weather forecasting but for me, just personally, if it isn't in the 96 hour time frame; not buying it. That's just how I look at it now. I've seen some incredible developments in meteological understanding in my lifetime and its all very impressive and yet, somehow, despite it all, no-one has been able to provide any accuracy in what the weather is going to do in a week's time. All the anomaly charts, all the background drivers, all the atmospheric analysis and the weather still seems to outsmart us all. Hoping for all our sake, even those struggling to pay bills, that there is something cold in store for us next month because I think seeing a cold sunny day is much more important for people's mental health at the moment than saving a few quid on heating with all the warm rain that still ends up cold enough to need the heating on anyway.

Because there are too many people on there that have learned absolutely nothing from years and years of weather watching. I can only assume they are either very young with not enough experience of disappointment, or have some very deep denial about climate change. I have been watching the weather for over 20 years and I have seen literally hundreds of FI, extended rage winter wonderland promises come to absolutely nothing. Watching people who presumably, might have been doing the same, STILL get wide eyed and gasp with with joy at what the extended range runs are showing like children in an advert for Disneyland is just extraordinary. Its beyond me why people bother to even look at it. "Oh but the trend is your friend!" Christ. Pretty toxic friend. Who needs enemies? The incredible mental gymnastics people do to avoid confronting the reality that we have a s**t climate, AGW is making it 10x worse and that is now on a runaway course into the abyss with no way of stopping it. I assume the negativity comes from the fact that there are people with 20 years and more experience of weather watching who are still looking at the snowmageddon - raging easterly - projected in the 384 range of GFS charts posting "how exciting! I can't wait to curl up by little homebase installed wood burner and sip cocoa by the fire, while the Christmas-card-pretty snow scene outside makes me feel all snuggly and cosy and ... oh.... those charts aren't there this morning... I .. I ...don't understand...where did they go?" OH MY GOD