butler_son

It must be disastrous here, prior to this rescue effort, this thread found itself below 3 closed threads and no posts in over 4 hours! I mean, where's the WI to, eh? Well, I guess weather wise, it was pretty nondescript. Don't fancy the back roads now the snow that had fallen and become slushy on the roads will now have to cope with solidifying again, as the temperature has dipped below freezing (well, -0.1C). Fun times...

We've been hovering at about 1.2C all day (night wasn't much colder either), not much higher, and the ground is still snow covered, although the rain and temperature means it's not the 5 inches we had. 0.8C currently.

They sell snow machines in Poole? Can't deny that the place might need them...

Oh my, it's tipping it down with rain, and I go away for a few mins and the temp rockets up to 1.4C. Still not too bothered, I don't even mind if all the snow gets washed away to be quite frank, but we do have 4 inches still which looks lovely. Would be nice if the temperature went down when the Sun did...

The rain's back, folks! I don't think it's gonna make a blind bit of difference to the snow cover we have, would be nice if it fell as snow, but you can't have everything. Night'll be upon us soon anyway to send the temps down. 0.6C here still. So although the rain's trying to melt the snow a bit, it's not doing very well at it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand relax. The rain's 15 minutes of fun didn't do anything to the snow cover, and all precipitation has now stopped. Even better, the temperature has stabilised and even dropped 0.1 of a degree since the rain stopped (now a balmy 0.6C). Might take a walk up to the supermarket in a bit, I'll be sure to take the old camera with me, see if I can't find some interesting pictures to take...

There's no question that if there was no snow cover already, what's falling now would not be settling. But, with 5 inches on the ground (must be now), it's only serving to top it up. May *just* be starting to look a little wetter in nature, but it's still snow. The temp is 0.7, humidity 93%, right on the limit. In fact, looks more like sleet in this burst, but I could be wrong... Some photos: In Ringwood, Hampshire this morning: Back home: And as I've posted that, it's turned to rain. Not sure it makes that much of a difference right now to be honest, the damage has been well and truly done.

Well Pershore continues its descent to -18.4C, Benson is toasting at -12.9C now...

And Pershore -18.1C, Benson -14.6C at 10pm. Pershore back to favourite?

Mr D - I take it, should a new ice age beckon, that a negative MWI would indicate an even colder winter than a highly positive one? Naturally, it probably won't occur, but if your winter mean does drop below zero, could lead to some interesting sums!

Joining this now - absolutely nothing in BH31. You go south into Bournemouth, they had some, you go north and they probably had some, we don't.

I would have thought that the Lakes would warm and cool quicker - yes, it may be hot in winter, but it gets cool quickly as well, being in the middle of a continent. The night-time minima are much lower there than here. Also, the Lakes don't have the warming effect of the Thermohaline Conveyor (or Gulf Stream, whatever it's called these days), which moderates our sea temps a bit in winter (I would imagine). Naturally, I could be talking piffle and am half expecting to be shot down in flames!

Well, I would have thought the temperature differential is the main thing. It's more the warm sea temps modifying the cold air mass that's the issue. Wikipedia does cite the North Sea effect as a Lake Effect like condition, but we're never gonna get 120" of snow in one storm off of the North Sea like you can off of Lake Ontario in Oswego County (Upstate NY)!

Except that the province of Alberta is completely snow covered...

Yes yes, I know...what can I say really? I was just hoping to get some sort of discount or signed copy for that book of his, I'm sure it would be a gripping and interesting read. Is it out yet? I can give you my absolute assurances that it wasn't. I don't watch X Factor. Though I do sympathise with the cause of those voting for Wagner, if he wins I might not have to buy the song to sabotage the X Factor Christmas number one. Curse you! On a more serious point, the official forecast was probably best in my opinion, though Paul Sherman's would have been my thoughts at the start of the winter! Maybe I'm just pessimistic...

Our living room got down to 14 before the nice man came to fix our heating yesterday...

You can actually see who voted for who, by the names on the poll it says "view". Which is something I didn't realise when casting my vote...

Ah Boston, what a cracking city! Was there this summer. Bit different to the memories I have of it... This being at 5pm in late August...

Will we be seeing a news report like this here this winter? Answer: Probably not, no...

Hence why I believe people should be more explicit. When reading through many posts, people were treating this as if it was going to happen (at least to my eyes). Normal human reaction indeed, I just feel that should be tempered a little, otherwise it could be a long winter for many! As a forecast (in terms of results), this is no better currently than me saying "we'll get 90 days of rain and wind this winter" (we won't), though its methods are doubtless better (as that statement took me 2 seconds to think up and has no methodology), whereas this forecast took no doubt weeks of work and expresses their methodology unambiguously. I just believe we should be praising their work thus far (which is no doubt sterling) rather than the forecast (in terms of its delivery)!

I shall add my voice with the many others expressing gratitude for the time and effort that has gone into this forecast from RJS and BFTP and appreciate their continuing efforts with shorter range forecasts throughout the winter (spesh BFTP on the Model thread). But as for calling it great...I'll hold off on that. Yes, it shows a scenario desirable to many and is very detailed in the methodology, but there's really no way of telling if it's a great forecast until the winter is over, no? After all, Ian Brown's forecast could have been a great forecast for last winter if it had come to pass (fortunately for many of us it didn't), but I'm sure many people didn't call it "great" when it was released. I wonder if, in the case that it had proved successful, would people have regarded it as a great forecast post winter? If this forecast proves to be accurate come 1st March, I'll be back extolling its virtues and saying how great it is. But for now, I'll echo the sentiments of gratitude and say it's an insightful and interesting read. All forecasts should be regarded equally now - only in March can we debate their "greatness".

Not that it'll affect our chances of white stuff, but looks like Alberta (as well as British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) will be turning rather white in the next few days and staying that way for the forseeable (Calgary temps progged to be -12 or lower maxes until the weekend last time I checked).

Got a feeling I was just under that red patch - good shout! For the record, was very thundery, small sized hail that fluctuated with rain. But the thunder rumbles were impressive. Lasted about 10-15mins.

If we're talking about snow in America, how about this freak storm? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_of_1977

All this hurricane hunting is really put into sharp perspective when you're out here. I stayed with my friend's cousin in Long Beach NY just over a week ago. It's difficult to think that they have a tropical storm warning out, and their basement apartment that they put us up in could easily be flooded as they are less than 100 yards from the coast. Currently I'm with that person's aunt and she's been phoning down to them. Suddenly it all seems different. Suddenly, this picture I took when there doesn't seem so cool to have taken a picture of anymore: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5465505&l=a38f6e8467&id=591331836 On Monday, I was in Boston MA. It seems weird to me that it could be battered by this storm. Much as I have always loved following hurricanes, it just seems a little different now. Fortunately it'll only be the really outer bands of rain that I feel tomorrow in Montreal QC, if at all. I just hope everyone can have their thoughts with the friendly folks who I met in Long Beach last week in the hope that this system does not affect them.