"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...
|
| "RK" wrote in message
| ...
| On Dec 31, 3:19 pm, wrote:
|
| Seems that this winter the promised snow (for the lowland south) is
| always three or four days away instead of seven to ten as in previous
| years.
|
| Does this mean that forecasts are improving?
|
| Odd, I live in the lowland south (Hampshire) and the last remnants of
| the snow which fell on the night of December 17th only melted on
| Tuesday morning (December 29th). There was still a "proper" covering
| until Boxing Day (nine days of lying snow).
|
| I much prefer truthful snow.
|

Not all of Hampshire is lowland. Some of it rises to over 200m and regularly
catches significant amounts of snow in wintry weather. In fact all of the
chalk downland which faces north and east is likely to "catch it" when the
weather is bad, while the southern slopes may see little or nothing.

Here in the really lowland part of Hampshire (only 17m above sea level and
just west of Southampton) the main event was the freezing rain on 23rd
December which gave many of us in the village a day off work as ice closed
the railway and made attempting to use the roads little short of suicidal
until the afternoon. We had three days with snow lying, but the maximum
depth was 1cm and at least one of the snow lying days was due to the snow
being unable to thaw as the freezing rain had encased it in ice!

The only thing notable about this winter so far where I live was the
freezing rain event, which is the worst I can remember in recent times. At
one stage we had continuous moderate rain with the air temperature and dew
point both below -3C. Otherwise, the winter so far would be about par for
the course in the years before about 1985. It seems severe now because we
have been getting milder winters than in the past.

If things turn out as some other threads suggest, about 10-14 days more cold
then the Atlantic returns, this winter will have been cold by recent
standards but not by any means exceptional amongst the 45 or so I can
remember (1962/3 is just within range).
--
- Yokel -
Yokel @ Ashurst New Forest
SU 336 107 17m a.s.l.

"Yokel" posts via a spam-trap account which is not read.