Last winter’s non-existent snow
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8061737/Snow-to-hit-Britain.html
This must be in error. Ten years ago, the top climate scientists at East Anglia told us that :
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
“Forecasters Positive Weather Solutions …
The Weather Outlook, …”
In other words, a couple of commercial weather forecasting outfits think there will be snow (and getting a bit of free advertising at the same time).
We had snow in London on the last week of October 2008 and it caught everyone by surprise!!
In fact the next morning when I took my children to the Tower of London there was still snow in the moat area.
So it is not unreasonable that snow could fall plus most of the weather models are agreement that we will get an unseasonable cold spell next week http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png
The last three winters in the UK have been colder than the 1971-2000 average and when I was a boy we regularly got snow in October, so we just seem to be reverting to that pattern.
What is your problem???
If you mean me, no problem at all. A bit of snow on high ground in Scotland (which appears to be what the MET Office is forecasting) doesn’t sound unusual to me. A couple of commercial weather forecasting companies getting a newspaper to carry a prediction isn’t that unusual either. If they are right it’ll be good advertising for them, if they are wrong, it’ll probably be attributed to the MET Office ;o)
On Sky weather forecast tonite as well.
So you’re saying no snow for the UK, then Dik?
no, just it isn’t newsworthy.
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.
He was right about this. In the UK, at least.
Dead right as most of our dopey local councils have cut back on gritters and spent the money on climate change depts.
Byz, the problem is what it is.
We have government paid scientists telling us BS.
Blatant propaganda telling us the planet is warming, winters belong to the past and the start of spring in January, like this article published in “Der Welt”.
And this is only one of the many millions of alarmist publications.
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article9974971/Ab-2030-beginnt-das-Fruehjahr-schon-Ende-Januar.html
Shockingly, the newspaper headline isn’t exactly 100% accurate. Dr. Viner didn’t say “snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” He said that they would become rare within “a few years,” but he didn’t specify any particular time frame. “A few years” can mean entirely different things to the general public and a climate scientist. I very much doubt that he meant five or ten years, or anything like that.
Viner stands by his statement, saying that he continues to believe that “snowfall will become an increasingly rare event [in Britain].” Most climate scientists I think would probably agree with that.
East Anglia only had ten years to straighten the misunderstanding out, but they were too busy avoiding FOI requests and deleting E-mails.
You are kidding right, most climate scientists will ignore reality and predict something that defies physics, real science and reason???? Oh wait…
Interesting history about the start of the thirty-year little cooling based upon a news article from October 1940… reporting weather during the war was censorsed: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-will-warmists-do.html
The winter, as you well remember, was the coldest since 1895 and January the coldest since 1838. The Thames was frozen in the upper reaches, ice interfered with shipping in the Estuary, and even the sea froze in Morecambe Bay.
East Anglia is the ClimateGate place? I think it is.
For those like Dikran and ChrisD who think that snow is not newsworthy in the UK either don’t live here or if you do, you don’t get out much. Snow, other than on very high ground is unusual as a general rule. The Gulf stream generally keeps the British Isles much warmer than the continent of Europe. Manchester is on the same latitude as St Petersburg, but never gets anything like the same amount of snow or its lower temperatures. Also because snow in any quantities is such an unusual occurance, we are also correspondingly bad at dealing with it when it does fall. Moreover if you knew anything about the British you would know just how much we love discussing the weather. We might not get hurricanes, but being on the edge of a continent and an ocean we do get an awful LOT of weather 🙂
Les wrote: “Snow, other than on very high ground is unusual as a general rule.”
I wrote: “A bit of snow on high ground in Scotland (which appears to be what the MET Office is forecasting) doesn’t sound unusual to me.”
The press in the UK always makes a huge fuss of the slighted hint of a possibility of snow, and then maybe you get an inch or two (although that is often enough to cause traffic to grind to a standstill south of the border), more often than not you get rain instead (which is why I take such “news” stories with a pinch of salt). Snow in England is not all that common, snow in the say the Cairngorms for instance is pretty common in Winter, and flurries starting in October doesn’t sound that unusual to me.
Here are some links to 10-day forecasts from weather.co.uk:
London (no snow forecast, no frost):
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-London-UKXX0085
Glasgow (no snow forecast, no frost):
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Glasgow-UKXX0061
Manchester (no snow forecast, no frost)
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Manchester-UKXX0092
Orkney (you can’t say I’m not trying!) (no snow forecast, no frost)
http://uk.weather.com/weather/10day-Orkney-UKXX0871
MET Office – no weather warnings, possible wintery showers on high ground and a risk of frost later in the week.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
Looks like (a) Positive Weather Solutions are going out on a bit of a limb on this one and (b) the journalist didn’t bother checking the story he was fed. Kudos to PWS if their prediction pans out the way they say it will, but somehow I suspect it won’t. Snow in October is newsworthy, a forecast of snow in October is not.
Snow is forecast over much of Scotland.
http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/static/europe/next3to6days/snow
In other words wintry showers over high ground. Unusual for this time of year in the Scottish highlands? I rather doubt it. Newsworthy? No.
Seems everyone’s forgotten the gulf stream slowing down. Forgetful muppets.