What Did You Think of Winter 2019/2020?

[Don]

On 11/03/2020 at 16:58, DiagonalRedLine said:

Snatched away by Autumn!

Or Global Warming?!

[BlueHedgehog074]

On 12/03/2020 at 10:23, Sunny76 said:

That being said, even in a poor summer there's still some pleasant days to be had. At least the daylight is longer from end of March until mid September.

It sure is. Longer daylight hours makes that time of year attractive.

Not as appealing really in Winter with the shorter days. Particularly not helped by the recent Winter where there seemed to be a constant supply of cloud and rain, bar a few odd brighter days.

[carinthian]

The winter was ok for me locked away 1650m absl. Certainly not vintage but more snow than some years. Lack of real cold days though. Speaking to many folk from lowland Europe, possibly one of the mildest , frost free and snow free winters they can remember.

C

[SLEETY]

Endless wind and rain,and not one snowflake. Months of chasing nothing in the end.

A truly dire winter and it seems harder and harder to get cold air into the u.k.

We haven’t had a cold and snowy winter for years.

Going to have to book a holiday at Europe’s highest ski resort to see snow,such is the decline of it.

 

And the chases goes on in Spring,look at the past week and once again the less cold solution wins out in the end.

 

 

 

 

[Sunny76]

3 hours ago, carinthian said:

The winter was ok for me locked away 1650m absl. Certainly not vintage but more snow than some years. Lack of real cold days though. Speaking to many folk from lowland Europe, possibly one of the mildest , frost free and snow free winters they can remember.

C

I’m sure this will be the reverse in 2020/21, and maybe the worldwide shut down from Covid 19, might lead to even colder weather coming our way next winter.

I’m not sure a really harsh winter next year is something that many people would want, after having to endure several months of not being able to work properly.

Only time will tell.

[Sunny76]

3 hours ago, SLEETY said:

Endless wind and rain,and not one snowflake. Months of chasing nothing in the end.

A truly dire winter and it seems harder and harder to get cold air into the u.k.

We haven’t had a cold and snowy winter for years.

Going to have to book a holiday at Europe’s highest ski resort to see snow,such is the decline of it.

 

And the chases goes on in Spring,look at the past week and once again the less cold solution wins out in the end.

 

 

 

 

The colder weather wasn’t that long ago, but even Feb 2018 seems long ago, and March 2013 seems like a while now. 
 

We were kind of spoilt between 2009-2013, when it seemed like snow was becoming a given almost every year again, only for it to disappear in the winter of 2013/14

[al78]

On 03/03/2020 at 18:34, Sunny76 said:

Winter 19/20 was a stinker, but it still felt cold at times, probably due to all the wind and rain. It never felt really mild either.

I think the mildness was largely due to the lack of any cold nights, thanks to the near constant clag.

[al78]

Winter 2019/20 will go down as one of the more unpleasant ones, over five months of damp clag starting from the Autumn equinox. There was a bit of respite in January when it was dry and settled for a couple of weeks, but the punishment weather returned in February. Couldn't do any pre-spring preparation on my allotment as it was almost like a swamp at times. The worst was two names storms in three consecutive weekends, talk about a Swearing AGAIN-take for anyone who works standard office hours. March didn't start off much better, but has improved from the second week onward, and the last week has been excellent, pity it has to coincide with a nationwide lockdown restricting the ability to enjoy any nice weather.

Despite the lack of cold nights, I did come off my bike once at very low speed on black ice, when the weather did that nasty thing of raining during the day, then clearing and calming after sunset, allowing temperatures to drop to near freezing. fortunately it was on an empty estate road so no issue other than a painful little finger which got knocked sideways.

[Norrance]

Welcome to the forum Al.
Can you put your location in please so that we know which area you are talking about? 

[matt111]

Awful.. Putting it mildly that is. No excitement whatsoever, maybe apart from the spell of stormy weekends but even that wasn't really that exciting here. Oh and far too much rain as was the case everywhere. 

[knocker]

Apart from too much rain and the floods that I wouldn't wish on anyone, both Sidney and I thought it 'ansom.

Edited April 2, 2020 by knocker

[carinthian]

On 30/03/2020 at 10:08, SLEETY said:

Endless wind and rain,and not one snowflake. Months of chasing nothing in the end.

A truly dire winter and it seems harder and harder to get cold air into the u.k.

We haven’t had a cold and snowy winter for years.

Going to have to book a holiday at Europe’s highest ski resort to see snow,such is the decline of it.

 

And the chases goes on in Spring,look at the past week and once again the less cold solution wins out in the end.

 

 

 

 

My friend in Sussex reports seeing a snowflake on Sunday and the lowest temp of the year on morning of 1st April !  Overall a joke of a winter for cold fans, especially in the south. Lots of rain for many followed by a dry March in the east  for a bit of a rest bite.

C

[Zenarcher]

For my location overall the winter wasn't anything amazing but not too bad either.

November saw a good number of sunny days along with frosts and icy weather while we went into December it turned unsettled for the first half with wet and windy weather but by the time Christmas and New Year arrived high pressure came in control to give us a settled spell of weather which was a welcome and I saw more icy and frosty weather that certainly gave it a more Christmas feel.

January started off unsettled again with more wet and windy weather and even a storm but similarly to December by the middle of the month high pressure returned to give us more settled weather however nothing cold or snowy and by this point I was wondering if we were actually going to get any snow at all this winter. The first week of February was still on the mostly settled side but as we started the second week it turned very unsettled with stormy weather bringing us very wet and windy weather I remember one morning we had a bit of thunder as well. 

Despite this winter probably being remembered as bad I still think we got off lightly with the storms for about 2 weeks during February most weather models at long range showed some serious storms hitting the UK a perfect example of this would be the GFS 18z run on the 3rd of February,

 

I've never seen something like that before in the 9 years I've been model watching the isobars are so tightly packed and the GFS was showing mean wind speeds of around 100mph the highest I've ever seen it say is around 90mph. But it wasn't just the GFS other weather models and the ensembles often showed very bad storms coming to the UK and I feel lucky that we didn't see any of them come true and while one of two did verify they were so far out in the Atlantic they didn't impact us too much.

Back to February I remember it just seemed to be a month that just never ended and made worst by the fact it was 29 days this year! It was just constant wind and rain however we did finally at one point get some snow showers it wasn't anything amazing enough to build a snowman but I was just happy to finally see some snow at last. The same unsettled pattern continued into March for the first 2 weeks until we finally saw some much needed high pressure arrive to give us dry weather after a very wet February.

This is why I voted for "Quite Rubbish" while for the most part it was rubbish with the fact I saw some snow, experienced a brief thunderstorm and had a decent amount of frosty icy days and also managed to dodge a million killer storms predicted by the weather models it was in the end not too bad.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Zenarcher

[Catacol]

Given the rain, the flooding, the mild days....and the lack of hard frost (let alone anything close to genuine lowland snow) it was one of the worst I can remember. Quickly needs to be forgotten though I fear we are in for more and more extreme weather in the coming years which will be weighted warm and wet rather than cold and dry. When we next get some genuine cold winter fare we will need to treasure it....