trickydicky

damianslaw You are right of course, anything can and perhaps will happen. But if I had to bet my own money on it I know which way I would be going.

My view is that any cold weather we receive in future, certainly any sustained or severe cold, will be very much against the run of play as it were. With rises in sea surface temperatures and the almost perma-high pressure over Iberia I think winters as they have been in the last few years will be the norm, with a general increase in the mildness as the years go on. Unless there is some sort of catastrophic collapse of ocean and air currents, and we end up with a Canadian climate. But that’s probably a tad unlikely at this stage.

Summer8906 I definitely agree that the tropical maritime airmass dominates now more than it used to. We seem to have reduced to two seasons with two weather types in each. Here anyway. Winter is either frosty and just as cold generally as frosty weather always was - in my lifetime anyway, or south westerly drear and very mild. I would say anything over 10 around here is very mild. Anything over 12 extremely mild. Those days used to be relatively uncommon. To the point where you would say to someone ‘its very mild today isn’t it?’. Now it is default and barely noteworthy. Summer is either similarly dreary and similarly mild or sunny and incredibly hot. 30c days used to be noteworthy now they are expected whenever the sun comes out between April and late October (slight exaggeration).

Popped out the front door this morning into some sunshine and it felt genuinely warm. Been out and about this afternoon and seen daffodils out and blossom on trees. Easy to forget its mid February in Cumbria and not mid March in Cornwall.

damianslaw perhaps its the lack of easterlies in recent years, but it feels to me like the difference in temperatures between north and south has grown. Maybe its just recently bias because all through this autumn and winter it has often been stark.

Just to go back to all these drivers, the AAMs and the MJOs and whatever else. I think the problem, if you want to call it that, in the model thread is that it is kind of split into 2 camps. Or maybe 3. The main camp of contributors are those who look at the models - the GFS, the ECM and UKMO - and from them try and make an educated guess at what the weather will do beyond the current spell that we are in. So in general they are looking for cold when outside it is mild (in winter). The next camp are those who can’t read the models (like me) and just want to know if a cold spell is somewhere on the horizon. We generally just lurk and observe. Then there is a camp who talk about the atmosphere and what it theoretically might do. This camp don’t generally talk about weather in a specific place at a specific time. There is a mutual frustration on both sides. The atmospheric drivers people are annoyed with the people who just keep talking about snow and the snow people are annoyed that the thread gets filled with enormous posts that barely mention the weather. There is some crossover between the camps but there are also fundamentalists on both sides. Any post mortem of the winter depends massively on your location. It will probably range from pretty decent in Northern Scotland through the decent side of average in the far north of England to absolutely desperate in the south of England. We have pretty much been at the boundary of the cold air all winter, without it ever leaving some and ever reaching others.

damianslaw I drove from west to east across Cumbria yesterday afternoon and this was very well demonstrated, particularly in the Eden Valley. There was a heavy burst of precipitation around Keswick, and 5-10cm of slush on higher bits of the A66 thereabouts. But despite the Pennines being totally white, here a couple of miles from the foot of them, there was nothing more than some very light drizzle blowing about on the wind. People slate the precipitation forecasts the models produce but this was shown to some degree or another on all of them.

Been a kitchen sink job here today. Had snow first, then rain and then hail. All very light and only the thinest of coverings on the fells. Not expecting much to come from tomorrow, I think anything decent will be south of and higher than here.

Been tonking it town all day today at 3-4c. Could be quite a lot of snow above 600m. Not that you can see any higher than about 200. edit.. webcam at Hartside shows wet snow at 580m.

@Iceaxecrampon I think there is an element of ‘all in a days work’ when the wind is from the west or south west, even when its that strong. Us and nature are fairly well adapted to it. I think its when its from north or east that it causes most carnage.

One of those periods that we get every winter that you just have to get through, and hope there is at least some sign of something better somewhere near the horizon. Unfortunately these periods seem to be longer and closer together these days!

Probably the most notable thing here is that the Eden is about a mile wider than it should be.

For about an hour after I got in bed, 11-12pm, it was really kicking off and I was just listening for the sound of things breaking. Then quite abruptly it died down quite a lot. Going to go for a nose about and check everything is still there.

I agree with this to an extent. The next 5-7 days will be another ‘silly’ example. During our mini mini ice age 2009-2013 it was notable that when it was mild it wasn’t actually mild, it was 5/6 degrees. I feel like when we get the Atlantic in nowadays its a long fetch southwesterly every time. A cool breezy westerly or a relatively cold northwesterly seem rarer than they were.

Beautiful day for a quick lunch time mooch. Not a cloud in the sky and that quiet muffled sound you get on a cold winter day.

It’s frustrating that its going to be monumentally mild and wet next week. The last few years have been terrible for sustained snow cover even on the fells. One, for the general lack of snow and two because whenever it has snowed its been washed away immediately. By this time next week there’ll be no sign that this week happened!

I went up to Cairngorm ski area that February and the top poma lifts were closed because they were buried.

Still a fresh -8 here. A car went past me on the school run this morning and the breeze it generated nearly cut me in half.

The North West probably has a wider range of potential snowiness than anywhere else. Low lying places on the coast get very little snow. West of the M6 in Lancashire is pretty poor, and anywhere on the west coast of Cumbria. Certainly in terms of settling snow. Places inland with altitude can do very well. The likes of Alston, Nenthead etc in the North Pennines can have snow on the grounds for weeks and even months, even in winters as relatively mundane as 2020/21.

Stunning. Your photo would suggest you received both more snow and less rain than round here. The rain got heavy for about half an hour around tea time here yesterday. Without that it would be looking like that here. Instead we’ve got a fairly random 40-50% cover with some fields still completely white and others completely clear!

Nice. Blencathra looked the snowiest of the fells today and your friends photos would seem to suggest the Threlkeld area got the most of the goodies yesterday.

Going to be a fresh one tonight, -6 already

It seems like temperatures are still dropping in Cumbria. -8 here now, -10 at Shap.

Crystal clear blue skies and a sharp frost at -7 here. Its a shame we couldn’t keep the snow cover, it would’ve been a perfect winter’s day.

Its all gone a bit damp. Squeeky bum time. Precipitation is still white but not very convincing.