Yes.. it's much much milder out there now. it's been raining all night

Normally this would happen on New Year's Eve itself, so it's a bit
early this year.

Amazing pattern in recent years.

Always the short cold snap sometime during xmas week, followed by
return of mild, wet, muck in time for New Year's Day

A long time ago, sometime in the 1970's, there was a big New Year's Eve
snowstorm over the south-west

We need a person of large proportions to sit on that Azores high for
us, and sink it back south, then maybe allow for that wonderful
situation of the Channel Low to occur again