It was too good to be true going this length of time without a storm.

Still mild cloudy and crap basically here in then central belt of scotland. Looks like the weather thankfully about to liven up a bit

At this very hour of the night on this date back in 2010 the temperature here was -14.3c (6f) and I recall walking through the deep snow around 1.30am in my puffa and gloves and feeling like I should have been much colder than I was for such a dramatically sub zero temperature.


I think our UK named storms should have surnames too. As we seem to be obsessed with naming stuff after Royals in this country maybe the potential Christmas storm can be named Storm Barbara Windsor?


Twins, yet the Met Office has never factored that into the family planning. I wonder if they got caught napping with the "unnamed storm" or whether it just followed on far too rapidly to be of use in naming, which is most likely I'd imagine. These storms tend to get a name approximately 48 hours before hitting I've noticed. That last one certainly deserved a name, if we have got to go through such shenanigans here in the UK.


The 40 second video in this Daily Excess article is quite breathtakingly foolish, pathetic and plain whacko even by their grubby low standards of non existent journalistic integrity. It actually made me rather angry. It simply rides roughshod all over the Met Office's serious attempts to inform the public in as reliable and accurate a way as they possibly can about what to expect or prepare for if needed.

"There will be near record low temperatures threatening the worst festive freeze for over half a century"

"Violent and deadly Arctic storms will rage into the start of 2017 as thermometers nudge -20c triggering outbreaks of crippling snow"

"Heavy and persistent wintry showers are now a near certainty across the UK on Christmas Day with multiple feet deep snowdrifts lasting into the new year amid sub zero conditions"

"Government officials have sought to allay public fears insisting grit and salt supplies will be enough to keep the roads moving"

My brother actually liaises with the Met Office and has to monitor weather conditions on call constantly, because part of his job means he's in charge of deciding when and where many roads in parts of Derbyshire should or should not be gritted, such as through the Snake Pass. I'd throw grit around the offices of those who write such garbage on that paper, as they clearly need to get a grip....on reality!

unsettled westerly from midweek for the foreseeable..

another 'mild' unsettled winter looming?..

Phew! GFS is now showing signs of coming more into line with the ECMWF, GEM and UKMO models and thank goodness for that!

Which means that the Christmas Eve (starting early overnight) and Christmas Day main storm centres are more likely to cross the Faroe Islands and possibly the Shetlands rather than the Hebrides or mainland Scotland, with storm to hurricane force winds confined primarily to open sea off Scotland, with areas further south spared the worst of it. Still a windy day everywhere with gales even in England and higher gusts. Lots of rain around too from time to time but some places will get lucky on the timing, especially in parts of England.

If the models continue to agree, and given that in Scotland storm force winds are not uncommon in Winter so is more used to it, fewer large trees etc., northern England may have dodged the bullet, fingers crossed on that. One or both of them may well get a name though, if as seems likely, orange warnings are issued later in the week for wind, rainfall or both.

All I know for the last 2 days I've been checking the local weather forecast for Newcastle Upon Tyne for Friday 23rd December as I'm travelling to the West Midlands by train that day from Newcastle and the wind speeds per hour on that day and date have been getting slowly stronger during the last two day's when they update the forecast every hour and it's a bit worrying for travelling by train on Friday.
Ian.

Well Newcastle-upon-Tyne is in the 'at risk' area, even on Friday afternoon/evening as the first storm approaches, which may now be a late Friday and overnight event rather than Christmas Eve daytime. Timings seem to be moving a little quicker now. It may just be a 'normal' gale though, wet and windy.

Well we've only had one "Official" Storm this year, two if you count the unnamed one that followed straight after Storm Angus that many people thought was the same Storm. Think back to this time last year. The country (particulary the north) was getting battered left right, and centre by gales, lashing rain and floods. People were having to put sandbags outside thier doors and move thier furniture upstairs it was so bad. We were up to our 6th named Storm (Storm Frank) by the end of the year. By the end of the Winter we had 9 named Storms in total.

Luckily this year the polar vortex isn't as strong and so the jetstream is weaker and is going in a more meandering pattern like a river rather than in a straight line straight across us bringing us a mixture of milder and colder interludes rather than giving us constant mild temperatures, endless rain, wind and storm after storm for weeks on end.


John Hammond explains here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/38163932

For some reason the Daily Express seem to have a strange obsession with Snow. Whenever they get the chance they always forecast heaps of snow when in reality 95% of places will get wind and rain instead. Haven't they realised that most of the UK just doesn't get cold enough in Winter most of the time for Snow? Do they not think that they have perhaps cried wolf too many times and that people might have got wise to thier nonsense predictions??

the BBC have wind gusts of 42MPH for me on Christmas Day and im as south as you can get down in Kent so i dread to think of what it could be further North

models now sliding towards a milder spell next week, a trend the anomaly charts first hinted at a few days ago.

pressure building to our south, mean upper flow from the southwest, mild unsettled weather likely next week. driest in the southeast, coolest and wettest in the northwest.

I suspect that most people in Scotland and N.I. will soon be focussed on late this week and the coming weekend ! Most of England seems likely to miss the bullet now, but air gun pellets can sting a bit too (and rattle the outdoor Christmas lights!).

Amber warning already for newly named storm Barbara, the first of the two. There should be enough separation between them for the Christmas Day storm to get a new name, it would be Conor.

Nice and sunny here today. Makes a change from all this dull murky gloomy weather we've been having. I've been observing the weather since mid September and for December in my observation nearly every day has black clouds.

Sorry, double post.

Got some rain here now but looking like it going to get a lot heavier in a few hours time. First spell of the nasty stuff coming up

Stormy here with gale warnings in place. Ferries still running. It's to be a very stormy week with severe weather over Christmas.

It's their version of the broken clock. If they run the same story every autumn/winter, eventually they'll get it right.

As for naming storms, I still think they should look at sponsorship opportunities.. This storm brought to you by..

Winds have really got up now and it's turned really wild out there, a bit like the stomy weather we got last year. Feels like the storm has arrived early. Opened the bathroom window to what felt like almost gale-force gusts of wind and it felt freezing cold.

Yellow Weather Warnings issued for most of the country with heavy rain and gales across the country on Thursday and Friday. It looks to be another mild and stormy Xmas this year with temperatures forecast to widely be 11-14c on Sunday.

We had rain here earlier in NI but it's clear skies now with nothing happening, not even a breeze let alone storm.

We are starting to see some uncertainty creep in now regarding the 'great Christmas Day storm' ... some models keep it, but one or two others now have more typical winter gales rather than another storm Barbara, or worse.

Because of that uncertainty, the weather after Christmas has also become uncertain, with a spell of High Pressure (but not a cold one) and drier weather now possible at least in much of England. As always, we shall see.

At least make it a snowstorm.....

It's very dark here.

A bit more windy tonight in Manchester than it has been recently but nothing major. Had a fire going outside earlier and cut it short. Amongst other things I was burning some paper and the hot ashes from that were taking off the wind a little so I called it a day for safety reasons.

That's not weather though!

It is now the darkest day of the year. Sunrise at 8.09am at my location and sets at 3.53pm. Today is precisely 2 seconds shorter than yesterday, after which they're getting longer again on the way to summertime. The "Summer of Seventeen" has a certain snazzy ring about it and I expect a lot of heat and can safely predict a lot of light too.

As for the weather, I was out posting a Christmas gift late tonight after 11pm and biked 2 miles there and back and was surprised just how chilly it had become with a temperature of just 2c and frost patches visible. No mist or fog though. A lovely invigorating ride in the quiet of a late December pre-Christmas evening. I notice that in the past couple of hours the temperature has been steadily rising however and that 2c at 11pm has now become 5.8c at just after 2am, so one of those nights of rising temperatures instead of falling ones.

Well you did write that at ten to one in the morning.