Penrith Snow

Put me down for one, I am a snow lover get me out of here!

Well, at 500 feet in Central Cumbria no forecast is predicting any snow so its not just the south likely to miss out. Unless you live in a log cabin above Aviemore this cold spell is turning into a dud. Andy

Yes 5 weeks of high pressure boredom followed by 10 days of keen anticipation and all for what? 3 frosty mornings and a wintry shower. Winters in the UK are cursed. Andy

What destroyed our December cold spell and turned a potentially snowy Christmas into a mild and wet one? It was a sudden rise in Iberian Heights just after mid month and you can see the same thing happening on the latest model output, no two scenarios are the same and in December the effect of Iberian Heights was to push the cold air north of Scotland but not that far. This time we may see the boundary somewhere over the UK as we go towards mid March which is going to lead to some interesting weather Iberian Heights are the curse of recent winters and are to blame for so much of our mild weather we see rather than an over active Atlantic Andy

Agreed, here in SE Spain February was very cool with temps 3c below normal, yesterday was ridiculous cold despite the sunshine. Minimum temperature forecast of 2c tonight and I live on the coast! Can’t wait for a warm up next week

Well It needs to warm up a lot! temperatures here in SE Spain are currently 6c below normal and this is the 7th consecutive week of well below average temperatures.

It’s no surprise but look at this snowfall trends map from ECM, UK clearly worst affected by declining snowfall and only Greece and Spain seeing an increase. You really couldn’t make it up

How things have changed, growing up in Birmingham in the 70's and 80's I used to look with envy at East Anglia as it seemed to snow there every other day, any waft of an easterly and the area was snow bound.

More model output this morning that resembles a Goose Chase, I am as optimistic as the next man but in late February a ECM at 240 having potential just doesn't cut it, if it was early December maybe, but any cold spell is now likely to be in mid March which too be honest is Too Little, Too Late. Andy

Start of winter? More like start of 2019! We seem to be chasing good Fi for eternity.

I remember th I remember that one 9cms of snow overnight in South Birmingham but it was gone by lunch time under spring sunshine and that is the problem will be face if the upcoming cold spell delays much longer

Winter 1975 was much milder than 2023 but March 75 was a cold wintry month with plenty of snow events. The Maundy Thursday blizzard in Birmingham on the 27th brought the City to a standstill with 16cms falling at Edgbaston during the afternoon, it was a classic Cheshire Gap streamer. Snow widespread elsewhere between the 28th and 31st to give a very cold, wintry Easter, Kent badly affected on Easter Sunday. Not sure what caused such a flip in early March that year but cold conditions persisted all spring culminating in the great June snowfall of 2nd June. Great weather, unlike the dead zone weather of the last few weeks. Andy

My garden on the 16th January when I got lucky from a weak occlusion moving south from Scotland. As usual MetO were useless in forecasting the snow

Yes Uncle Bartys Party with pints of flat bitter or tins of mild, bottles of Stella in short supply

Wow, follow the 1025mb isobar back from London and its reaches close to the equator! 20c Vallentines day anyone?

It's not going to happen in the next few weeks so let's push it back till December! My favourite month for cold

By naming depressions like we do Hurricanes places in the public mind the impression that our climate is now more severe which it isn't, Weather relate deaths were much higher in the 60's

I agree about the 91 to 2021 series being far too mild but i think 61-90 which includes winters 63 and 79 is setting the bar too high. I prefer 71-2000 as a better indicator of our long term climate pre GW Andy

GFS drops the cool zonality signal at day 10 only for ECM to pick it up. The whole GFS run is awful with a limp euro high and mild southwesterlies throughout, at least ECM offers PM shots later which in my opinion is the only way out of the euro High elephant trap. Who ever has the solution right we are rapidly running out of time and please don't mention 2013 or 2018, those winters were already fairly cold and completely different. Andy

The GFS Operational is bringing out outlandish charts normally only found from ensemble members. I understand ensemble runs use different starting data hence their wild outcomes, is the Operational now using similar 'alternative' data? Who knows

ECM having none of the GFS Moonjuice, high pressure centred over central Europe with UK under southerly flow by 240h, ultimate boring run eating up the remains of winter. Difficult to see how a Easterly could appear out of that See if the ensembles offer any hope. Andy

To be honest the GFS easterly would have been half baked anyway with cold, dreary grey skies and snow grains if your lucky. The only route to Cold is a collapse in the UK high followed by a short spell of zonality then a transfer of the PV to Scandinavia and Cold from the north west or north just like December and January A notable easterly spell this winter is dead in the water. Andy

A lot of people are going to get buried in snow. Unfortunately they are all Greek!

Historically it has been ECM that gave Ghost Easterlies, who can forget That ECM from 2012? GFS has always been the Atlantic Model so its a surprise that it probably has this one wrong, remember also that the MetO mention the chance on its MRF so Glosea must be seeing something as well. It's all down to the damn PV being to strong, the pattern wants to amplify like it did in December and January but with the PV in that location it's all but impossible to get deep cold west. My money is still on a weak easterly developing, not a beast but something can could bring frost and a little snow to the east and south. We shall see. Andy

Exactly, the high hanging around like a drunk Uncle Barty at a wedding will just lead to very mild South westerlies, at least with yesterday's theme of cold zonality we had the promise of north westerly outbreaks or even northerlies. If this mornings charts verify its down to B&Q to collect some BBQ coals.