Higher Ground

Well let's just wait and see what happens in a few weeks time... or less!?

Snow falling on top of the Lickey Hills this afternoon (close to 1000 feet / 300m). Very close to settling for a while. Video

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html

Re: whether summers are getting hotter - by my calculations: For the past 10 years (2009-2018) Mean annual max CET = 29.0C Mean summer CET = 15.9C Previous 10 years (1999-2008) Mean annual max CET = 29.3C Mean summer CET = 16.1C Decade before that (1989-1998) Mean annual max CET = 28.9C Mean summer CET = 16.0C

Even the biggest drifts didn't quite make it until the second Beast From The East here - though it was a close call, just a couple of days. But then again you had the Pest From The West to help tide you over, from what I remember...

Still good drifts here as well. Amazing isn't it how they've almost replicated the drifts (in the same places) from the last Beast From The East - such similar events

Snow patch still hanging on in the woods at 290m altitude this morning - top of the Lickey Hills on the edge of Birmingham.

Are you sure re the dew points and precipitation? https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=156&mode=2

In terms of wanting to see a historic cold & snowy spell, I actually wouldn't change a single frame of the GFS 0z op run, for my location in the Midlands at least. At any 'normal' time I suspect model-watchers would regard most of the synoptics we're seeing as phenomenal or even borderline impossible - certainly for the time of year. Surely there's a very tricky compromise between hanging onto the coldest air, and allowing enough moisture to feed in to produce snow - even though the moisture is inevitably associated with milder air. I think GFS 6z strikes this balance very well, and still leaves scope for almost everyone to see significant snow depending on subtle changes closer to the time. Tantalising as it is for those in the most southern/south-western areas, it's their knife-edge situation that corresponds to the greatest chances of a nation-wide snow fest. (As I understand things, at least).

Thank you so much for coming up with this metric, and updating it consistently over the last few days. It really helps to have an objective way of trying to determine if there really have been 'downgrades' or 'upgrades' over time.

I think you're debating an argument that I'm not making. Will say no more

I can't say on what timescale the arctic is warming, but I think those links provide some balance when it comes to understanding the teleconnections in the short to medium term.

You might also want to look at Arctic summer snow cover, which was the highest for over 10 years this June and July, and the highest for nearly 20 years this August https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=8 Also Arctic ice volume which is still up if anything since 2011 http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/cryosat_piomas_awi_ts.2011.2017.Oct.png How can you be sure high sea surface temperatures around Svalbard aren't a release of heat (cooling), rather than a warming? Bear in mind that the North Atlantic at 0-700m depth is still the coldest for 15 years despite an upturn this year www.climate4you.com/SeaTemperatures.htm#North%20Atlantic%20(60-0W,%2030-65N)%20heat%20content%200-700%20m%20depth Not wanting to go off topic either, just trying to add some more pieces to the jigsaw in understanding how it's still possible to get severe cold despite longer term warming.

Wow that looks pretty bad. What a nightmare for those affected

Thanks for the interesting stats about Svalbard temperatures over the past year, and it definitely seems relevant to me in terms of how deep any cold is that we tap into. I just wanted to point out that I used to check the Svalbard forecasts/recent temps for similar reasons to those you have outlined. However, I found that actual temperatures would often turn out to be several degrees C warmer than those forecast. (I think I tried using at least a couple of different weather sites.) Think there was an issue there that I never quite got to the bottom of.... I suspected the microclimate of the airport affecting the observations but not the forecasts.... but that's only a guess. Let's see how it turns out, and do update us in a couple of weeks time with the actual temps.