Spring moans, ramps, chat and banter

[cheeky_monkey]

5 minutes ago, Buzz said:

It saves on the heating bills ........... (trying be positive here).  

My boiler broke on the 23rd of November and have had no heating or proper hot water since then..so im thankful for a record breaking December

[nicklon1]

Hi All,

I only drop by periodically to see what you're all chatting about during the extreme ends of our climate here, i.e. high summer and mid-winter.

This spell of weather is really terrible isn't it. Give me crisp clear blue skies and frost or snow on the ground any day of the week over grey, wet and mild but not having to "wear a coat"???

It's plenty warm enough in the pub when you get there.

The only upsides for me are; thinking of the execs at the big energy companies sitting in their boardroom looking out the windows as we all keep our heating turned off.

And there's a tiny bit of "grumpy old man" schaudenfreude for me seeing shots of packed high streets with cheap christmas decorations and rain hammering it down. I love the thought of frost and snow at Christmas, but living in the south east it just never happens, despite how much the christmas TV adverts convince everyone otherwise.

I fee like writing a john cooper clarke poem about the realities of christmas in England as an antidote to the unrealistic adverts on tv.......plastic santas hanging outside the bookies in Southall high street......traffic jams outside argos......nan's got the heating on again.......mrs browns boys on the telly........it's p*ssing down

Nick

[Nick L]

2 minutes ago, nicklon1 said:

Hi All,

I only drop by periodically to see what you're all chatting about during the extreme ends of our climate here, i.e. high summer and mid-winter.

This spell of weather is really terrible isn't it. Give me crisp clear blue skies and frost or snow on the ground any day of the week over grey, wet and mild but not having to "wear a coat"???

It's plenty warm enough in the pub when you get there.

The only upsides for me are; thinking of the execs at the big energy companies sitting in their boardroom looking out the windows as we all keep our heating turned off.

And there's a tiny bit of "grumpy old man" schaudenfreude for me seeing shots of packed high streets with cheap christmas decorations and rain hammering it down. I love the thought of frost and snow at Christmas, but living in the south east it just never happens, despite how much the christmas TV adverts convince everyone otherwise.

I fee like writing a john cooper clarke poem about the realities of christmas in England as an antidote to the unrealistic adverts on tv.......plastic santas hanging outside the bookies in Southall high street......traffic jams outside argos......nan's got the heating on again.......mrs browns boys on the telly........it's p*ssing down

Nick

Merry Christmas!

[snefnug]

25 minutes ago, Nick L said:

It does to a certain extent, but as has been mentioned, it's so damp that the heating is needed to dry washing or simply to keep the house dry in older homes. Plus, the near total absence of sunlight means the house never warms up in the day at all.

Then again, my bills are covered in my rent so I'm happy for it to be colder

Damp house is not nice, so our heating is still going on for a couple of hours on low, still using wood burner in the evening.  Electricity bills upwards, as the daylight is so dull, lamps on ..I've not put the Crimbie lights up yet!

[Fingers]

With the temp anomalies currently at 4.3'c above average and forecast to rise further over the coming period, we are going to require some exceptional cold in the remaining 2 months for this winter period DJF to come out anything other than significantly warmer than average. We'll need to be 2-2.5'c cooler than average in Jan and Feb, which is exceptional in itself, to get back to just average for the tri-monthly period!!

I'm not writing off winter as plenty to play for in Jan and Feb but need this pattern flip. Fingers crossed the current potential signs come to fruition and the PV weakens accordingly.

Clem

 

 

[Ravelin]

9 minutes ago, Fingers said:

With the temp anomalies currently at 4.3'c above average and forecast to rise further over the coming period, we are going to require some exceptional cold in the remaining 2 months for this winter period DJF to come out anything other than significantly warmer than average. We'll need to be 2-2.5'c cooler than average in Jan and Feb, which is exceptional in itself, to get back to just average for the tri-monthly period!!

I'm not writing off winter as plenty to play for in Jan and Feb but need this pattern flip. Fingers crossed the current potential signs come to fruition and the PV weakens accordingly.

Clem

Won't it be funny when we're looking back in April and saying, "How could we have had all that snow in a winter that was above average?". We'll all have forgotten how warm December was by then.

^^
I think I might be going just a little bit crazy.

[Nick L]

2 minutes ago, Ravelin said:

Won't it be funny when we're looking back in April and saying, "How could we have had all that snow in a winter that was above average?". We'll all have forgotten how warm December was by then.

^^
I think I might be going just a little bit crazy.

I doubt this December will ever be forgotten. It will be set as a mild benchmark much like December 2010 was for cold.

[Fingers]

Still hoping to buried for the next 2 months! There's a link between NAO in July being repeated through the winter. It was highly negative, think it was 2nd or 3rd most negative recorded, so always hope!! Pesky Nino! 

Clem

[Froze were the Days]

Just been out for a walk - birds are really lively and numerous bees on plants!...have to say this is nothing short of ridiculous. I wonder if we (in the south east) can get through the whole month without a frost?

[Fingers]

1 minute ago, Froze were the Days said:

Just been out for a walk - birds are really lively and numerous bees on plants!...have to say this is nothing short of ridiculous. I wonder if we (in the south east) can get through the whole month without a frost?

We had a frost on the 9th December around Winchester, it got down to a mind blowing -0.5'c! Other than that no sub +5'c overnight temperatures. 

[cheeky_monkey]

4 minutes ago, Froze were the Days said:

Just been out for a walk - birds are really lively and numerous bees on plants!...have to say this is nothing short of ridiculous. I wonder if we (in the south east) can get through the whole month without a frost?

what about going through the whole of winter without a frost?..now there a thought

[Lake District Blizzards]

At least here nature is suppressed by constant dark and wet wind chill conditions

i fear if there was any sun then it would be really damaging like in places where Daffodils are already flowering etc

[Froze were the Days]

5 minutes ago, Fingers said:

We had a frost on the 9th December around Winchester, it got down to a mind blowing -0.5'c! Other than that no sub +5'c overnight temperatures.

We got down to 4c that night but been nowhere near since - as for the whole winter being frostless in places, it's certainly a possibilty if this mind numbingly boring patterm continues. Personally I blame the person who set up the 'when will the next above average month be?' thread a few months back - really really asking for it! who was it?

 

Look forward to model watching at this time of year but this is really disheartening.

[legritter]

Well again today we have bumble bees ,last night a few frogs moving about and the heating only going on last night for my frail mother in law . but hopefully a few crumbs of comfort on todays charts ,something quite stormy and very wet later next week and the possibility of some high pressure setting up shop but exact details very slim at the moment .

certainly very interesting synoptics around so mother nature in a very active mood ,its this i,m clutching at ,we could go reverse ,heres hoping ,oh well lets take the old dog out before todays rain arrives ,cheers .

[Mcburns]

Very fed up of the same weather day after day after day! Just a little bit of cold of even cool would be nice.

 

To top it all off my girlfriend jets off to the Canadian Rockies, Canmore, Alberta for Christmas this weekend. Highs of --4 to -9  and lows of -9 to -16 forecast for her next week 

[tempestwatch]

I do think that there will be some averaging out of the remaining part of winter, although probably in the last quarter. I cannot see the whole winter being this much above average. I remember saying in the Autumn when here in Scotland we were having reasonable warmth and sunshine for many days in a row, that nature would even things out to a certain extent. I am not saying that it will be average jsut that at the end of the season,the positive anomolies will not be as acute as they are at the moment.............I hope

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by tempestwatch

[Walsall Wood Snow]

2 hours ago, Nick L said:

I don't like automatically blaming individual events on climate change, but it does make you wonder if this exceptional warmth would have occurred pre-industry. It's not a case of how above average we are, it's how above record warmth we're going to end up at this month - that's extraordinary.

Actually the Winter of 1685/86 was apparently exceptionally mild, and may have been the mildest in the CET record. What's amazing though is this Winter occurred during the height of the LIA and just 2 years after what is regarded as the coldest Winter since records began, that of 1683/84.

[Nick L]

4 minutes ago, Walsall Wood Snow said:

Actually the Winter of 1685/86 was apparently exceptionally mild, and may have been the mildest in the CET record. What's amazing though is this Winter occurred during the height of the LIA and just 2 years after what is regarded as the coldest Winter since records began, that of 1683/84.

1685/86 saw a DJF CET of 6.5, 6.5 and 6. So it was pretty mild but not that mild. That's a similar average to 2013/14.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Nick L

[Nouska]

2 minutes ago, Walsall Wood Snow said:

Actually the Winter of 1685/86 was apparently exceptionally mild, and may have been the mildest in the CET record. What's amazing though is this Winter occurred during the height of the LIA and just 2 years after what is regarded as the coldest Winter since records began, that of 1683/84.

Wild swings in temperature and precipitation were a common feature - extreme meridionality  associated with solar minimums can see your location either on the upstream or downstream of a deep digging trough.

[Nouska]

2 hours ago, Nick L said:

Some of our European energy clients are quite concerned because of the extremely dry month they've had over much of Europe, lakes and rivers are drying up, as well as ski resorts having no snow like you said. Pretty strong single for it to continue for the coming month or so as well. This pattern is useful for nobody!

It is not a good situation here, extreme drought restrictions to mid autumn and I see no sign of the water reservoirs being replenished. Have to hope something changes before mid spring or there will be an even worse situation next summer.

[mushymanrob]

3 hours ago, Nick L said:

I don't like automatically blaming individual events on climate change, but it does make you wonder if this exceptional warmth would have occurred pre-industry. It's not a case of how above average we are, it's how above record warmth we're going to end up at this month - that's extraordinary.

 

well ive been skeptical on man made climate change, indeed the climate has fluctuated a lot long before industrialisation.

whether 'we' are causing the climate to warm or whether its just normal fluctuations isnt really the issue here - statistics are telling us that it is warming, in which case wouldnt we 'cop' for a very mild winter sooner or later regardless of what causes it? 

i am posing this as a question and not as any sort of definitive reason for the warmth.

[Nick L]

9 minutes ago, mushymanrob said:

 

well ive been skeptical on man made climate change, indeed the climate has fluctuated a lot long before industrialisation.

whether 'we' are causing the climate to warm or whether its just normal fluctuations isnt really the issue here - statistics are telling us that it is warming, in which case wouldnt we 'cop' for a very mild winter sooner or later regardless of what causes it? 

i am posing this as a question and not as any sort of definitive reason for the warmth.

Yep, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that we're in a warming world, so it was only a matter of time before we saw a month above average to the extent we're seeing.

[jethro]

I know the world is warming but I'm not convinced it's having a large impact here, we've always had bonkers weather and will continue to do so, our location is the reason why. I've just had a quick flick through a page on the booty weather site (brilliant for historical weather stuff) and taking winter 1934/35 as an example, it was very mild, up until 2013/14 it ranked 9th warmest since 1659 - it was followed by widespread snow on 16th/17th MAY! Not just a few flakes, or the odd dusting, but from Scotland all the way down to Tiverton in Devon, proper snow cover - 11cm in Tiverton, 15cm in the Yorkshire Dales, 30cm in Leeds, even the Scilly Isles had falling snow.

A warming world is supposed to produce more extremes of weather but to my untrained eye, it seems we've always had contrary, often extreme weather here. Check out the historical stuff here   http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1900_1949.htm

[Costa Del Fal]

3 hours ago, Nick L said:

Yep, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that we're in a warming world, so it was only a matter of time before we saw a month above average to the extent we're seeing.

But isn't this warmth largely a result of a very strong El Niño driving the pattern and over riding other signals - hence the persistent euro high. 

As to the impact on El Niño from climate change, the science leaves very mixed opinions on that especially in our part of the world.

 

[Nick L]

Just now, Costa Del Fal said:

But isn't this warmth largely a result of a very strong El Niño driving the pattern and over riding other signals - hence the persistent euro high. 

As to the impact on El Niño from climate change, the science leaves very mixed opinions on that especially in our part of the world.

 

Well the impacts of El Nino on our climate in general are poorly understood, there's no concrete link that strong El Nino automatically means a mild UK winter. I'm just saying that background warming would exacerbate any mild signals.