A cold, crisp, sunny, frosty day today. Similar to Saturday. Barely a cloud in the sky. Min Temp -2c, Max Temp 3/4c. Didn't feel too bad outside actually, though I do have 5 layers on!

Was interesting looking at the frost on the grass. As the sun got higher in the sky any frost that was in the sunshine melted but the frost in the shade was still there.

Current temperatures around the uk at the moment....



Belfast

8°



Birmingham

4°



Bradford

2°



Brighton And Hove

5°



Bristol

5°



Cardiff

4°



Coventry

6°



Edinburgh

7°



Glasgow

8°



Kingston upon Hull

4°



Leeds

2°



Leicester

4°



Liverpool

4°



London

7°



Manchester

4°



Nottingham

4°



Portsmouth

4°



Sheffield

5°



Stoke-on-Trent

3°



Wolverhampton

4°


Amazing how Scotland is actually milder than most of England!

220mm here according to the Accuweather Website, which is 130mm above the average. Temperatures have also been 2c below average.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/bur...010?view=table

So not good.



It got down to -2c here by morning as well.

And yes, I tried that once, but the temp was 0c, not into minus figures, wouldn't have liked it to be any colder!

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2118509

Units, Man! Units!

As my old Physics teacher used to say "Are those Elephants?"

Now I know we are mostly a UK bunch and it's most likely degrees C, but it's sloppy practice.

Americans are the worst offenders. Never sure if their Scientific Elders use Fahrenheit or Celcius

http://www.brannan.co.uk/celsius-cen...and-fahrenheit


I applaud your use of the '°' symbol

Musical Interlude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6fVDAjs9f0

What links? Do they base their short to medium range predictions primarily on GFS model data? Them being American and all. Incidentally, ECMWF now has the High centre back over England at day 10 and never any westerlies south of the outer Hebrides, so we are seeing a significant split in the main models. Be interesting to see which one gets it right (if any).

As for frosts, well cloud amounts in a prolonged anticyconic spell at this time of year are notoriously variable both in amount and location so I have no doubt that there will be frost around in some places on most days, while the HP lasts. Looking like maybe a -3 to -4C here tonight, air -0.3C already (-4C at Hurn), DP -3.7 and grass is -5.7C brrrr.

Oh relax Mr Teacher, I just simply copied and pasted the values from the AccuWeather site, and I simply couldn't be arsed adding a C to every single temperature. I'm sure most other people would be the same...

I agree though that its a bit sloppy that the website doesn't add the C of F at the end, but they do let you choose between Celcius or Fahrenheit so at least you know what units your using.

You don't get direction, mild criticism or humour do you?

posted several months ago, but here

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...0day/500mb.php

click on the 8-14 day link on the left for that period.

they still suggest high pressure over the uk, the 8-14 suggest the high might move south., a bartlett... . a deep mean trough in the mid atlantic, high over our south, mean flow from the west over the uk but sourced in the mid atlantic.

Ah I remember now, cheers. Their current 8-14 day prognostic discussion (dated 29th.) includes the following:

"FORECAST CONFIDENCE FOR THE 8-14 DAY PERIOD IS: BELOW AVERAGE, 2 OUT OF 5, DUE TO LARGE DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN THE ECMWF ENSEMBLE MEAN AND THE GEFS/CANADIAN ENSEMBLE MEAN (PARTICULARLY OVER THE EASTERN CONUS)."

So clearly their outlooks include guidance from all the main computer models, which is good. Though this will inevitably tend to produce a rather course and fairly non-specific and/or low confidence forecast when the models disagree as they did yesterday. I mentioned the GFS-ECMWF disagreement at 10 days incidentally, in my comments yesterday and that disagreement is perhaps even greater from day 9, especially for England, on this morning's runs. GFS day 9 develops low pressure near and south of Iceland which deepens, combines and moves east, north of Scotland, the ECMWF version has their deep low much further north, with pressure over England at 1030mb though not a particularly wintry-looking one.

Time will tell which (if any) models win!

A milder day today. Still no rain though. Come to think of it, it's not rained here since last Tuesday! Very unusual for Lancashire, especially this time of year. No rain ahead in the forecast so far either, just the usual cloud, sun etc and temps around 5-8 degrees.

Well if it's in a more rural location then shouldn't the maximum temps also be lower as well?? I would've thought so especially as most of the hustle and bustle (cars, people heating) etc will be around more so during the day than the night so I would have expected to see more of a difference in the max than the min temps.

There is a youtuber I regularly watch who does timelapse videos from his house in Manchester. His name is Scott Richards. You can check him out here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottSkye9500/featured

Not only does he record the sky but he also records the temperature as well, and if I compare a particular day to the observations from my nearest weather centre (Bingley), I often find that his minima is about the same as mine but his maxima is often a couple of degrees higher. I live in a semi-rural area not too far from the city on higher ground.

BTW, my average maxima in Summer is about 18/19c and minima 12/13c. In Winter it's maxima 5/6c and minima 2/3c.

https://www.worldweatheronline.com/v...erages/gb.aspx

http://www.holiday-weather.com/burnley_gb/averages/

http://www.meoweather.com/history/Un....html?units=c#


But as I said before no matter what location you use you get slightly different values with different climate websites. So they must be using different sources/data for the values.

Not really, the biggest differences occur on cold nights when the difference in temperature between inside and outside houses is at its greatest due to home heating, heat retention at night by buildings, roads, and even fenced or walled gardens which have less airflow than open country so they can also retain some heat. Daytime differences are very much less but do occasionally occur.


As I mentioned, your original link is identical to the Met Office website data; same source.

absolutely..... its uncommon for any one model 'to win', but what i do is view the anomaly charts first, because their success rate in getting the mean upper air pattern correct has been found to be very accurate, especially for the 6-10 day period. i then fit the operational runs to that, believing more the run closest to what the anoms are suggesting. in fact i dont view the operational runs so much. the detail on them chops and changes. i find the anoms plus experience give me a close enough picture.

Well today's 12Z ECMWF is coming line with the others, with the HP pulling away S or SE in about 7 days' time and a SW flow following. Like the others, including now UKMO, it loses the High by day 7. So GFS and NAVGEM (Canada) gain the points so far, they spotted this first, and if all models stick with this in tonight's midnight runs, we will have consistency as well, and more confidence in the outcome.

I tend to prefer looking at the individual models I have to admit, and won't usually comment beyond 5 days unless and until we have an all-model agreement and consistency between runs. But hey, it's the run-up to Christmas now and I might even look at the spaghettis when time permits, Christmas forecasts can be fun.

Meant GEM (Canadian) and NAVGEM (US).

I'm looking forward to what December has to offer this year after last year's exceptionally mild one. So far I very much approve of the outlook as a much colder and settled one and a flabby polar vortex allowing deep plumes of arctic air to filter far south. Now let's get the flakes too from around mid month onwards to aid perfection.

The meteorological winter has begun.

Early hours of Wednesday morning I hit a low of -5c here. Coldest night since way back at the start of last year on 23rd January 2015 which was exactly the same value, so almost 2 years.

Benson in Oxfordshire which is not too many miles away hit a low of -9c early Wednesday but the RAF base there is a notorious frost hollow. The figure still counts though!

anomaly charts though dont support the high drifting southeastwards, in fact the current 6-10 day chart has a mean NORTHERLY albeit light for spain/western med. that suggests the high will be centered somewhere over the west of spain.

the anomaly charts arent infallible, but are the most accurate for the timeframe they cover . john holmes, experienced professional ex met man did this research on netweather. has to have some truth to it!

The mist descended over central London at about 9.30 this morning, was at it's heaviest around an hour ago and it's just lifting now.....

I was out earlier, it was cold but very nice

I do like the mist because I'm surrounded by skyscrapers and it's cool to see them disappear and appear again and the tops go missing !

They have mostly gone Bartlety for now, Flabby High over N Spain-Biscay-France with westerlies over us. GFS takes it all the way back to an Azores High by days 8-10 hence your northerlies to its east. Beyond 10 days it's nearly all down to the GFS and I wouldn't bet anything on that kind of timescale; 10 days is stretching it, frankly - whoever does the analysis.

Coldest night of this and last winter so far here last night, at -3.7C and a grass of -7.2C. Deep in suburbia here though so rural areas were as usual much colder - Southampton Airport just up the road reported a -8C air temperature this morning, which is colder than my grass got!

8c and cloudy here today. Remaining dry. Milder than of late. Similar tomorrow, then turning colder again over the weekend.

It's almost like different countries but this time, the opposite way round to usual. Already -3C at Benson and Bournemouth AP; -2C at Southampton AP (+1.2 here in nearby townland, grass -5C).

You mention Netweather. Is this where you source your anomaly charts from?

Also I'd like to ask opinion on what people think is the best all round website for the weather enthusiast?

I use Netweather too, their 500 metre 5 minute precipitation radar (subscription) is excellent and there are different subscription levels depending on your interest, or free for the basics. I also use various fre services from all over the Internet, e.g. Wetterzentrale TopKarten for model data, University of Wyoming for METARs and more, OGIMET for SYNOP data, Weatheronline for various stuff, Wunderground, even Met Office WOW, there are many great sites!

Yep, sure is. Looks like the tables have turned. It's the South's turn to shiver...
Still 6/7 degrees here in Lancs with a direct westerly. Just needed a zip-up hoodie over a t-shirt outside. Whereas down South id probably need coat, hat, gloves etc. The sky has become a bit clearer now but still not going to get cold enough for a frost.

I much prefer this milder and cloudy weather to the cold and crisp conditions we've been having lately. I don't care for the sunshine in the colder months, the clouds help to keep the heat in, especially at night. The frost can bugger off as far as I'm concerned. I'd be very happy if we kept these dry, cloudy and mild(ish) conditions till the end of March.

i prefer changeable and unsettled weather. something different every few days.
now this high pressure stuff atmo seems to last for weeks on end.