Winter 2018/19

[reef]

Another day of maximum sunshine here today. The total for the month stands at 140hrs which has blitzed the previous record of 126hrs in 2008. The 1981-2010 average is 80hrs so we're already at 175% with a day remaining. An exceptional month.

[DAVID SNOW]

2 hours ago, Don said:

With average global temperature continuing to rise, achieving 40C is more likely than ever.  Now that we have recorded 70F in winter for the first time in recorded history, I think mother nature is giving us a wake up call, rather than something to celebrate!

Time will tell Don, anyway life is too short to worry about things you or I can do nothing about!

So I enjoyed the last day of this settled spell(garden)before it returns to average with a bump!

[Don]

1 hour ago, Snowyowl9 said:

 

A similar type spring like 2008 I would not refuse.

That would be good, following record breaking warmth in February.

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, Don said:

That would be good, following record breaking warmth in February.

Spring 2008 was very varied, a generally cool March, with a white easter, cold to start April further snowfall, preety decent from mid-month onwards. May 2008 was a month of two halves, an excellent warm dry sunny first half, mild but very wet second half. It would be good from a varied perspective, but I would switch the May around.

The summer was poor though - no thanks to that, the autumn and December were very good though, with lots of dry cold frosty weather, a proper autumn and December until mid month, the end was good though.

Interesting to note how the Februaries of 1990, 1998 and 2008 were all followed by quite cold weather at some stage in April.. 

[Don]

13 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Spring 2008 was very varied, a generally cool March, with a white easter, cold to start April further snowfall, preety decent from mid-month onwards. May 2008 was a month of two halves, an excellent warm dry sunny first half, mild but very wet second half. It would be good from a varied perspective, but I would switch the May around.

The summer was poor though - no thanks to that, the autumn and December were very good though, with lots of dry cold frosty weather, a proper autumn and December until mid month, the end was good though.

Interesting to note how the Februaries of 1990, 1998 and 2008 were all followed by quite cold weather at some stage in April.. 

I remember 2008 fondly weather wise as it signaled the start of the 2008-13 colder period, although winter 2007/8 was mild itself.  Had a little snow Easter Sunday that year and a couple of inches on the morning of the 6th April.

[damianslaw]

7 minutes ago, Don said:

I remember 2008 fondly weather wise as it signaled the start of the 2008-13 colder period, although winter 2007/8 was mild itself.  Had a little snow Easter Sunday that year and a couple of inches on the morning of the 6th April.

Yes we had seen signs of a change the previous summer with a southerly tracking jet, alas it never stuck into the autumn. We also entered true solar minima in the Spring, winter 08/09 being the low point... interesting to see if winter 18/19 was the low point, or if it is winter 19/20.. looking at past trends the winter before true solar minima has often been a mild one.. 

[Snowyowl9]

May 2008 I counted 28 days with winds from the easterly direction a record,a very solid thundery first half.

[Summer Sun]

Winter is officially done now and I have to say it flew by

Not one spell of disruptive snow all winter up here just the spell late Jan and early Feb which brought a small amount for a few days

[reef]

It flew by because we didn't have one! 

February finishing on a CET of 6.7C means the winter mean was 5.87C - the 17th warmest in the CET series.

Here it was another shocker with only three days of snow lying at 0900, though these were only half covers. We now haven't had more than 0.5cm for over 6 years.

Utterly abysmal. The only positive was it was extremely dry and sunny. As much as I enjoy the cold the last couple of weeks have been amazing.

[karyo]

Well, winter 2018/19 was a shocker! Not only because we didn't achieve any decent cold, but mainly for me because of the lack of proper cold anywhere near us, so even when the winds were from a favourable direction there was no cold to tap into. There was a similar picture across much of the continent with the God awful high pressure refusing to move for any more than a week. 

I think this is a trend in recent years as it is becoming more and more difficult to get proper cold to our shores. We have to rely on exceptional synoptics (March 2018) for anything noteworthy. On top of that, we can easily break warm records which is a tell tell sign of global warming.

[Rambo]

12 minutes ago, karyo said:

On top of that, we can easily break warm records which is a tell tell sign of global warming.

I think you mean localised warming lol

[MP-R]

The good snowfall on 31/1 - 1/2 saved this winter from being a complete dud here. The only other saving grace is how dry it became after Christmas so at least one could use the outdoors more than some of the muddier winters.

[Summer Sun]

 

[snowray]

Complete lack of northern blocking this winter and charts all over the place, I had to stop looking too carefully and analyzing each run because it was giving me a headache, so what have we learned from this winters SSW event then? Last year a late Feb Beast from the East and a quick response, this year no response and a late Feb heatwave.

Edited March 1, 2019 by snowray

[Selliso]

7 minutes ago, snowray said:

Complete lack of northern blocking this winter and charts all over the place, I had to stop looking to carefully at each run because it was giving me a headache, so what have we learned from this winters SSW event then? Last year a late Feb Beast from the East and a quick response, this year no response and a late Feb heatwave.

Can we really say that there was no response? (not meaning this antagonistically, btw - just interested in the point some have raised on the "failed SSW") 

My very limited understanding is that there absolutely was a response in the troposphere, and we saw the PV split into three distinct lobes. 

We've simply been very unlucky again with how the lobes positioned themselves - one of them over Canada and northern USA and never retrogressing.

The Jet was therefore well supported with very large gradients over the northeastern USA.

In that set up, everything was stacked against us to promote a cold easterly or northerly scenario. But saying that, that winter was hardly Atlantic-driven, just HLB in our locale was not forthcoming.

So my summary is that we have had a somewhat more blocked winter, strongly supported (globally) by a major SSW, but Blighty just wasn't in the right spot for cold again this time. 

Happy to be corrected on any or all of this - as I'm confused by the failed SSW response point. 

[TEITS]

Incredible to think I haven't even seen snow falling let alone lying snow. I believe the only time snow did fall was one morning around 5am but obviously I was in bed asleep.

I started this winter by saying ignore background signals if the promise isn't being shown in the reliable timeframe. I also said I was going to ignore long range model output and stick with +144 with a passing glance to +240. Im glad I did and shall do so next winter.

 

[karyo]

21 minutes ago, TEITS said:

Incredible to think I haven't even seen snow falling let alone lying snow. I believe the only time snow did fall was one morning around 5am but obviously I was in bed asleep.

I started this winter by saying ignore background signals if the promise isn't being shown in the reliable timeframe. I also said I was going to ignore long range model output and stick with +144 with a passing glance to +240. Im glad I did and shall do so next winter.

 

You saved a lot of time! I will do the same next winter and also avoid reading posts on Model Output discussion until a cold spell is just a few days away.

[danm]

From a cold and snow perspective it’s been a 3 or 4 out of 10. We had a couple of snowfalls in London, with a couple of cm’s laying for each. Other than that, it’s been mild but also relatively settled. 

We’ve had worse winters, but also far better winters. 

[Summer Sun]

Record breaking February, mild winter

Quote

 

No one could have missed that February was record breaking. Daily maximum temperatures have been the highest on record (dating back to 1910), averaging out at 10.0C, ahead of the 9.8C recorded in 1998. In total 21 locations in the Met Office observing network broke previous national (England, Scotland, Wales) records, some of these on multiple days. On 26 February, the previous UK record (19.7 at Greenwich on 13th February 1998) was broken as far north as Rochdale, Greater Manchester (20.4 C) and Myerscough, Lancashire (19.8 C).

Looking at winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) the season was warm and dry for the country as a whole, but not record breaking. There were some regional differences, for example it was the 23rd driest for the UK but the 4th driest for east Scotland and the driest since 1964, while it was the 6th sunniest for the UK but the 2nd sunniest for E. Anglia, and east and north east England.

 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2019/february-and-winter-statistics

[trickydicky]

This winter I saw snow falling twice and laying temporarily twice. Both times it was so light and thin that it melted as soon as the sun came up in the morning, even with temperatures around 0. There were a couple of Wednesdays around the end of January and beginning of February where we had close to ice days, if not outright ice days, and there was a nice spell of about of a week at the start of February when it was sunny and there was a lot of snow on the fells. It soon went though when the record heat arrived. I would give this winter probably 2 out of 10. It wasn't as incredibly depressing as November-December 2015 and maybe not quite as unwintry as the winters around 2006/7/8. But not far off. Goes down as an absolute shocker in my book.

As an aside there seems to have been a shift in that snowfall from low pressure systems bumping into colder air now affect further south than they used to. I used to think that Cumbria/the north of England wasn't great for sustained cold or snow but at least we got a heavy fall every year, even if just for a few hours, from low pressure bumping into cold air, or breakdown events. You used to be able to hang your hat on it snowing at least for an hour or two after a frosty spell. Now we don't even seem to get those! They seem to be the exclusive property of an area between about Staffordshire and the M40. Any frosty spell we get nowadays just seems to fizzle into nothing.

[Snowyowl9]

4 hours ago, Rambo said:

I think you mean localised warming lol

Another word for urban warming.

Wouldn`t be saying that time last year broke all cold records.

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Snowyowl9

[karyo]

3 minutes ago, Snowyowl9 said:

Another word for urban warming.

Wouldn`t be saying that time last year broke all cold records.

 

Feel free to elaborate

[cheeky_monkey]

winter here was a back loaded season..Dec and January were above normal..February was exceptionally cold and ended up for my location being the 3rd Coldest Feb on record and the coldest since 1939..it was also relatively snowy..probably the snowiest since 2010-11.

[Don]

Overall CET was 5.86C for winter 2018/19, then.  Very mild but I had the deepest snow since 2010/11 which lasted 3 days, so I count myself as very lucky!

[I remember Atlantic 252]

20 minutes ago, Don said:

Overall CET was 5.86C for winter 2018/19, then.  Very mild but I had the deepest snow since 2010/11 which lasted 3 days, so I count myself as very lucky!

yes as we all know by now, 

this day last year I had my fix, legendary day, 15cms of snow and some amazing drifts