al78

My own perception is that blocked weather patterns have become more frequent over the last 15 years or so and this is leading to more frequent extended periods of either bone dry or soaking wet. Take a look at last year's HadUKP figures. There were four months out of 12 within the top decile for rainfall (records going back to 1766), three of those in the top 5%, and one (February) in the bottom 5%. The standard deviation of monthly rainfall in 2023 for England + Wales is the eighth highest (other years with high monthly rainfall variability are 2000, 2012 and 2020).

It is like many cold spells that I can remember, when it has been cold we have had high pressure very close by bringing in northerly or easterly winds, so much of the UK is dry. To get a big snow event you want something like the model porn that was visible a few days ago with a frontal low coming up from the SW against the cold air over the UK, but failing to displace the cold air so we end up with hours of steady snowfall, with maybe sleet and rain in the far south of England. To get that needs several things to come together which makes it a very low probability event, but high enough that one model in 20 might show it in 5-10 days time. It seems to require extreme conditions to get a really decent snow event these days, along the lines of January or December 2010, or March 2013, and even in December 2010 the coldest for a century and a rare example of a negative CET month, the snow in and around Horsham wasn't huge (up to six inches), it was the duration of the cold and snow on the ground that was notable.

Yes that is what I was seeing last week, and I remember thinking if those lows did come up into the south against the Arctic air mass it would have given us a snow event to rival some of the historical classics. In reality the front never made it to our shores so it stayed cold and dry here in Sussex.

I find March a transition month. The first half is like the end of winter whereas in the second half there starts to become the possibility of warm summer-like temperatures given favourable synoptics (e.g. March 2012).

Given December 2010 was the coldest for around a century and is one of the very few months in that period with a negative CET, I'm not surprised that trying to compare current forecasts to it would result in accusations of hyping. Any sort of ramping is likely to stimulate a metaphorical slap back to reality response.

I have been enjoying this cold spell with its dry and occasionally sunny weather even if the ground is still boggy. The good thing about it from my perspective is that the lack of rain means the roads are dry which means no black ice and is safer for cycling. Looks to be back to reality on the weekend and of course there has to be a potentially nasty storm sweeping across the UK on Sunday coming into the models when I have booked a non-refundable rail ticket costing over £100. Still six days out so hoping it will moderate as the lead time decreases through this week.

People who want to downplay the risk of anthropogenic climate change have an agenda, those who are scared of change or want to keep the status quo because they make a lot of money out of it and to hell with the consequences for anyone else. The vast majority of the news reports on weather and climate that are rubbish are from the Daily Express and Mail in my experience, newspapers that are little more than right wing neo-liberal porn.

Change the record. We have had plenty of media reports of extreme cold in the past, mostly when it affects the U.S because media reports are heavily biased to where the wealth is and where people like us live. It is not going to make much of a media story that a country traditionally thought of as very cold at this time of year with a very low population density is experiencing exceptionally cold weather.

If it is cold and dry but sunny that will be a pleasant change from relentless heavy overcast, lights on all day and everywhere soaking wet.

Of course the models are going to be wrong frequently at a week or more out, there is little model skill at that lead time because the atmosphere is chaotic. Why would anyone with any knowledge/experience of meteorology and/or forecasting think any different? It is ridiculous the way some people cling onto some model output showing a screaming northerly or easterly over a week out then throw toys out of the pram when it doesn't happen as though its mere existence in one ensemble becomes an entitlement to expect it.

If Kent got hit with thunderstorms in April that explains the localised extreme rainfall anomaly there.

Again, perceptions of the quality of months are often highly dependent on which part of the country you live in. April 2023: Drier and sunnier than average in much of Scotland but duller than average in southern England and south Wales and double the normal rainfall locally in SE England. Someone who lives in Ullapool will have a different perspective on how good the month was compared to someone who lived in Tonbridge. May 2023: Drier than average everywhere except a swathe from East Anglia to the central south coast where it was near average and slightly above average locally. Sunshine was biased west and the east side of England and the far north of Scotland were near or slightly below average. August 2023: Largely average or below average sunshine, particularly the latter in the west. Rainfall anomaly highly spatially variable and averaged across the UK rainfall was near average. May is the closest to a *good* month nationally going by rainfall and sunshine anomalies and I suspect the sunshine and rainfall anomalies are heavily influenced by the dry and sunny period in the final tercile, the other two are mediocre to poor quite widely.

Knowing our luck things will change and we'll get a massive Greenland block and stonking upper trough over the UK just in time for summer.

The last 2-3 months have reminded me of the winter of 2013/14 except with different parts of the UK flooded and with the windstorms not as severe.

I heard recently wind generation has been high through the autumn. I suspect solar has been on the low side.

The very anomalous rainfall in eastern Scotland is probably heavily influenced by storm Babet which dropped a lot of rain over a couple of days on Aberdeenshire/Angus. It does if it is tracking down over southern France/Spain with a block developing over Scandinavia/Greenland, not when it is aimed like a cannon at northern and central England.

How wet those months were depend heavily on where in the country you live. National averages obliterate regional variation. If you lived in NW England or SW Scotland, those months together would have been very wet whereas much of southern England was drier than average.

Nothing balances anything out, the weather and climate respond to forcings. If the forcings change over time, so does the weather/climate. The weather doesn't choose to be dry next year just because we have had months of above average rainfall this year.

Northern Scotland is one of the only parts of the UK that until the last week or so has had below average rainfall since early November, which to me is a classic fingerprint of a jet stream tracking further south than normal.

That would be good although very warm starts to Spring have a habit of confusing the natural world and prematurely encouraging fruit budding which then get smashed by a hard frost a few weeks later. If we do have another March 2012, lets hope April to June doesn't follow 2012 as well:

Yes says it all really. I'm going to Shropshire on Saturday to visit my sister which coincides with yet another batch of wet and windy weather barrelling across the country.

Classic Salford Christmas period weather this week, one good walking day for every five days of clag and rain. I'm going to try and get to Pendle Hill tomorrow but the Met Office forecast after initially looking promising has now flipped to rain for much of the daylight hours after a sunny morning . I had a quick look at the Met Office contingency planners for the JFM period and it seems to now be biased towards colder and drier as we go through the winter, so a glimmer of hope we might finally get out of this godawful three month dull and wet spell into something more usable.

This year wasn't a typical English summer. You don't get two record or near breaking months in a typical summer. A typical English summer has brief periods of warm and sunny weather followed by cooler wetter conditions, not locked in hot and dry for a month then a massive flip to dull and wet for a month. ENSO's effect on European weather is weak so other factors will likely dominate most of the time.

June 2020 was wet and quite dull across much of the UK, June 2021 was poor across SE England and June 2019 was dull south of Gtr Manchester/North Yorkshire so I don't think we are overdue a poor June unless climatology dictates one should happen every year. February 2020 was the wettest on record with named storms on back-to-back weekends and destructive flooding, February 2022 was sunny in the east, dull in the west and very wet north of the M4. February 2021 was not great, dull and wet in many places. I'd say that the weather in the UK has taken a dive since lockdown restrictions were first eased and I include in that useless and dangerous levels of heat like in summer 2022.

Quality of life in the UK is still decent by global standards, there are way worse places to live, which is one reason we have people willing to risk their lives to get here in small boats to claim asylum. This year has been particularly miserable weather-wise and it is easy to get caught up in the here and now and miss the bigger picture of how beautiful the UK is as a country, and it is easy to get pulled into the media doom and gloom. Everywhere has its grotty spots (which the tourists will be sheltered from when on holiday) but visit any of the national parks for outstanding natural beauty.