You've been very unlucky Nigel.

I'll personally never ever forget the weather we enjoyed on Christmas Eve
and Christmas Day here in Haytor. Completely sunny, azure blue skies and
deep pristine powder snow underfoot. Magic!

What a contrast since then and now. Here's hoping you get some sun this
weekend.

Will
--

"Nigel Morgan" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 6 Jan 2011 05:06:48 -0800 (PST), Nick
inspired
by Deep Thought wrote:

10 sunless days is quite a long time to see no sun at all.

Here in High Wycombe we haven't gone QUITE that long without ANY sunshine
BUT I
have recorded a total of just 10.6 hours' sunshine here since early
November
last year! We saw the sun BRIEFLY on Sunday morning (2/1/11) for around 5
minutes - which was the first time we had seen it for a week, after that
it
remained obscured behind mid to high-ish cumulus which allowed for a
"bright"
but not sunny rest of the day. We've also had three days where the sky was
bight
for an hour or so, but the thickness of the high cloud meant the sun was
no more
than an opalescent bright yellow patch in the sky. There's no way it could
be
recorded as sunshine.

Then we saw a whopping 2 hours on Wednesday morning 5/1/11 (which
incidentally,
was the first time I have seen the sun rise here since 19th November last
year -
and the most sunshine since another 2 hours worth on Boxing Day) but the
seemingly never-ending gloom has ruled ever since!

I have NEVER in my 55 years known two months where the bleak midwinter
weather
started so early, where I have seen so little of the sun AND where we have
experienced so many consecutive occasions (the record was eight
consecutive
days) where the sky cleared around sunset thus ensuring a hard frost at
night
followed by the sky clouding over around dawn/sunrise which then meant we
got
the "double whammy" of a freezing cold night followed by no sun at all
during
the day to help raise the temperature a bit.

There is one small crumb of comfort to be gathered from all the gloom...
it
meant we didn't get the pipe-bursting frosts that Scotland & Northern
Ireland
got. We hit -12.1C one night, but mainly it was -6C to -9C most nights.

Between the middle of November and the end of December 2010 there have
been 5
periods of continuous frost which lasted in excess of 80 hours: 110 hours
being
the maximum length so far. That's the largest number of frosty days (i.e.
where
the temperature stayed below freezing all day) since February 1986 where
we
notched up 30 days (i.e. at least 720 hours) of continuous sub-zero
temperatures
which, I believe, was a new record - and one which still stands!

My gut feeling is that the expected milder spell will indeed prove a
sucker's
gap, but we shall see! I really can't say which way it will go, but if all
the
previous winters I have lived through are anything to go by where the
bleak
midwinter weather has arrived early, then I suspect cold weather &
snow-wise
we're not out of the woods by quite a long way!!

Time will tell!


On Jan 6, 10:30 am, Martin Rowley
wrote:
... 10 sunless days including yesterday; looks like today will be the
11th. I had a look at the WeatherOnline archive which only goes back to
October 2005, but over those 5+ years, I couldn't find anything
approaching this length of persist gloom in the Hurn record.

You could argue it's a bit of a fluke - as we've had clear/clearing
skies overnight - indeed yesterday morning (Wednesday) at daybreak, the
sun did actually rise (visibly that is) but presumably wasn't strong
enough to trigger the KZS at Hurn.

And of course, at other times of the year, the chances of the cloud
clearing late in the day and giving a fractional sunshine amounts are
much greater.

Martin.

--
Martin Rowley
Location: West Moors, East Dorset (UK): 17m (56ft) amsl
Lat: 50.82N Long: 01.88W
NGR: SU 082 023
W: booty.org.uk
E:

Slightly better in Southampton yesterday morning, the sun was visible
from sunrise until, I think , about 11am.
I'm hoping that things will improve from Saturday, even if it's not
exactly settled there will hopefully be some sun at times.

Nick