mike Meehan

I am starting to get quite pessimistic about the chances of a good old Scandi/Russo high - we are now mid way through the season that the temps in Western Russia and Scandinavia appear to have been exceptionally mild with a number of days at Moscow being above freezing when quite often at this time of year we see max temps often down to -18C. The cold does not really seem to have set in until the other side of Urals is reached. Until now much of Scandinavia has been on the mild side with temperatures near the seasonal average starting to drop in the northern parts. No doubt there is still time for this but as the season advances the chances become less and less. The northerly outbreaks from the Arctic north are all very well but they tend to be relatively short lived and in our part of the world give rise to wet snow rather that the lovely dry stuff. Come back 1963 - all is forgiven!

And we thought we had it bad: http://www.midilibre.fr/2018/01/04/tempete-eleanor-un-agriculteur-retrouve-mort-sous-une-coulee-de-neige-en-savoie,1610030.php A farm worker found dead buried in the snow in Savoy - 4 others are injured.

Interesting journey to Loughborough and back - Watford was mostly clear of snow - Luton has a bit more just covering the ground but the area of Northants had a fair covering and it was evident that the snow ploughs had been out. Also there was thick thick traffic! - it took just under 4 hours for a journey of just under 100 miles.

More like sleet now - temp plus 1.2 C - More green than white on the grass. Humidity risen from 90 to 92%.

About half an hour ago it was snowing quite heavily at Watford - trying to settle with a white/green surface outside - temp plus 1 C but very wet stuff - eased off a little now, temp up by 0.1C - quite marginal really. Travelling up to Loughborough later this morning - there doesn't appear to be anything much up there, wondering whether there will be more over the Chilterns in the Luton area? However suspect the M1 will remain clear.

RIP snow - it was short and sweet, good while it lasted but alas farewell. What I would really like to see is a good old fashioned Russo/Scandi high with LP in the channel feeding in easterlies giving power snow and maxes of -5 C but there appears to be little chance of that in the immediate future with temps of +4 C at Moscow and Archangel.

Ac few post ago I referred to the lovely sunset - it so happened that my daughter was equally impressed and took photos - great minds think alike! However the one to really drool over is the third one which I believe is a scene from Finland.

For most of the day we had rain with some wet sleety stuff coming down, needless to say none settled, with the temp remaining at +2C. Just before sunset the skies started to clear and we were blessed with a 'red sky at night' - since then the temp has been going down and the bar up. 'Spect there will be a moderate frost tonight - the roads are mostly clear but not so much the pavements with still plenty of slush around, so it will be a bit hazardous for the old 'uns tomorrow morning.

Rain at Watford +1.8C - nasty 'orrible morning.

As you say, many are driven to school and part of today's problem is that it is so easy to send a round robin E-Mail, or telephone to say school is cancelled. I wonder whether the cancellation is ever due to the reluctance of the staff to make their way in, if that is the case, aren't they setting a bad example?

Can't really understand why they shut the schools down after a slight to moderate snow fall - when I went to the senior school in the 50's its was often the case during a cold spell that we would still get to school and find that of the delivery of school milk delivered that morning that the bottles would be frozen solid the extent that the milk was expanding out of the bottle and they would be half covered in snow. It never occurred to us that a snowfall would be an excuse for a day off school. The school itself was about a couple of miles from my home - that did not qualify for the school bus - the normal bus service was just one an hour - never did use that - we either walked or cycled. Not sure that it is an altogether good thing - kids need to be challenged from time to time and getting to school under adverse conditions helps that - it is character building. Meanwhile if anything the temperature at Watford has climbed fractionally to 1 C - no fresh snow and still cloudy. No fresh snow though there is a belt about say 40 miles o the north of us according to the radar.

The man on the telly said the snow would stop at 3 pm and it did stop at 14:55 hours - still cloudy with a temp of +0.8 C though dry now. Prior to that it became lighter then a short period of drizzle. Very slow thaw should finish as ground temps drop this evening - expect a very slight frost tonight but according to the radar there are still a number of showers about, so likely to get a further covering. The gritter eventually appeared on the A41 about the middle of the afternoon. Fortunately my daughter and son in law came over this afternoon and cleared my driveway - it's on a slope, ok get getting off but it is a bugger getting the car back in if it is iced up.

Must have mis-estimated at Watford - depth more like 7 cm now - temp +0.5. The solar panels not working too well today!

Had a bit of a disturbed night at Watford - snow started about 0200 but was very slight - at 0600 it was still snowing but very wet and depth not exceeding 1cm - checked the radar and saw that we were on the cusp between snow and rain. Went back to bed expecting that the snow would turn to rain but lo and behold still snowing quite heavily, depth about 2 to 3cm, temp hovering between +0.4 and + 0.5. Obviously caught the local council on the hop - they haven't gritted the main A41.

Not holding out any hope for today at Watford - currently 3.4C with a humidity of 71% which should bring the dew point below zero, if only I could recall the formula for working it out - some small bits of cu with small amounts of alto cu and some alto stratus above but mainly blue sky, bright and sunny. I don't think the snow they had in the Midlands is going to reach this far south. If we get any at all over the weekend it looks like snow during the early hours on Sunday turning to rain, with temps rising to say 6 to 8C, so only likely to be fleeting and I think we will have to get up early to see it.

Might be getting somewhere but just need to change the position of the high centred just north of Olso, flatten it out and elongate it to east into Russia to bring us more into a direct easterly flow. There's a fair bit of time yet for the situation to change.

A typo Don - put it down to my advancing age,

I see that Accuweather are forecasting rain and snow for Watford, Herts on 25/26 December 1917, giving a max of +5 during the day on 25th with some rain and snow showers, 71% probability of precipitation with a wind SSE 15 kp/h gusting to 48 kp/h, followed by continuous moderate snow for 12 hours amounting to 18.8 cm during the night with a min of -2C, wind ESE 24 kp/h gusting to 46 kp/h. However 26th shows the wind turning round to N with max rising to +5C, so we will have to be quick to catch it. Perhaps it's their Christmas present from them to us! 25.12.2017.docx

As a follow up to the above - we left Clermont Ferrand with a clear sky, the previous evening had been cloudy and some fog had developed with the wind dropping out, with the temp mostly about 2 C but dropping to 1 C in the region of Orleans. Visibility along the autoroute was mostly about 300 to 500 metres, though with occasional clear patches. I marvelled at the French technology when enabled drivers to travel without any lights at well in excess of the 130 kph speed limit in those conditions. It's either that, where they could make a fortune if properly marketed, or might it just be that some of those drivers have a suicidal streak? As was the low temps stayed as far as Orleans when by stages they peaked at 13 C near Rouen with variable cloud. An interesting 30 hours weatherwise.

Took an interesting drive through the Massif yesterday - left Capestang with almost wall to wall sunshine, though a little cool at 12 C, but as we neared the Massif the temperature rose to 14 C - with a northerly I suspect there was something of a fohn effect but by the time we reached a service station at 600 metres altitude the temperature had dropped to 7 C but with clear skies persisting. As we progressed north there was evidence of cu which gradually increased in area though not much in height until it was spreading out a little, tending towards strata cu. About half way we saw the tops were covered in snow and as we continued it was more and more in evidence, with the temp dropping further to 2 C for quite a while but at the northern end at altitudes of a 1000 to just over 1100 metres it had dropped to 1 C and the snow was more widely spread with some evidence of drifting. There wasn't enough to impede the journey and as it turned out it tied in well with the Accuweather forecast for St Flour, which predicted a cm of snow. Down the other side at Clermont Ferrand the temperature rose again to 7 C. Invariably the drives which we do twice a year return each year are invariably interesting and at this time of year we have had a high of 25 C and lows of about 0 C - we have had fog and torrential rain and snow above about 900 metres some of which I have posted. Yesterday for example the bottom halves of some wind turbines were plainly visible whilst from the axle upwards was obscured by the cloud.

I seem to recall now that the reason it was never adopted was particularly because of that complaint by the Scots - as far as I am aware most of the country was in favour of it. As far as travelling on two wheels was concerned I had to do plenty of that - it is called adapting to the conditions and is first class training in observing the road conditions - however, I did come off once with my now wife as a pillion when riding over a snow covered road, the front wheel struck a patch underlain with ice. We were travelling slow at the time and no damage to the bike or ourselves. I don't know how you manage to get as much as 8 hours daylight in Scotland when in midwinter it's about 7 hours 50 minutes for us down in the south east and as I said in my original post what about the people in Tromso? For the early shifts I used to start at 0600 hours, so it was dark - for the nights 2200 to 0600 hours it was dark both ways, got to bed whilst it was still dark and when I got up it was getting dark - ma week of that with little normal daylight can get quite depressing. It is as broad as it is long - with the current system it means very often that people are driving to walk in the mornings and driving home also in the dark which increases the hazards on the roads. Scotland, especially the more western parts sustained the later sunrises and I can appreciate the problem but the local school times could have been adjusted to suit - I wouldn't mind betting, depending on the distance of travel that some school children in Glasgow would be returning home with at part of their journey in the dark. We are never going to satisfy all the people with this - there are pros and cons on both sides but for most I would not say it was the unmitigated disaster as you describe. http://www.theweek.co.uk/61009/when-do-the-clocks-go-back

We are all different but for me I hate the dark evenings graduating into the dark afternoons of mid winter. Many years ago when my children were still quite small we did have, as an experiment for a year, BST - I relished every single minute of that extra light in the evenings and would dearly love to return to that situation. As an aside I recall 'Paddy' saying once during one autumn, "Ah to be sure, it's getting much later earlier these days" - I love that way of phrasing it - it is almost poetic if you understand what I mean but the fact still remains that as the next three months pass I will be getting increasingly depressed until finally the glimmer of hope arrives at the other side when the days are noticeably getting longer again. How the hell the people in Tromso get on with their two months of perpetual darkness I just don't know. On the other hand, especially when we have nice clear weather, I really love the way the twilight lingers until close to 11 pm with a wonderful shades of blue, gradually deepening. Well unless we are fortunate enough and rich enough to do a transhumance from one side of the globe to the other every 6 months we will just have to put up with it.

I am finding this restriction on editing something of a bugbear - there have been a number of occasions when I have wanted to edit my posts, sometimes through typos and sometimes considered that I need to add or amend something pertinent only to find that further access to make corrections etc is verboten. Can we at least have more time allowed for making such corrections?

From 1960 to 1963 I was a scientific assistant in the Met Office - we were plotting in C and most of the world was sending their obs in C, however the Americans still insisted on F, meaning we had to convert all their temps into C. After a while that became automatic, I still remember a lot of them. As a matter of interest do the Americans still send obs in F? looking at some their forecasts for their own public, they are still in F.

Never seen anything like this before - get the impression that it is a rainbow effect from rain falling from the smaller cloud above the main one, any other ideas?