In article ,
Scott W writes:
Further to Dave Cornwell's comment a few weeks back that people
mostly remember a winter through the amount of days with snow
lying I decided to use the data I produced for my winter forecast
and try to find out what snow cover has been like in my area going
back to 1946/47 - the first year of the original snow survey. I then
divided the snow lying days by the winter mean to give the index.
I realise there is the work of Bonacina to consider but as this is
national I wanted to look more indepth

That's very interesting. Thanks for going to the trouble of producing
it.

If snow cover is the main interest, then why divide the number of days
with lying snow by the mean temperature? Because the mean for 1962-3 was
0.2C and that for 1946-7 was 1.3C, the division massively inflates the
index for 1962-3 compared to the earlier winter. (And what would you
have done if the mean for 1962-3 had come out negative, as it very
nearly did? [Added later: Having now read the follow-ups, I see that
Norman has made the same point, only rather better.]

There was snow lying through much of the first two weeks of March in
1946-7. It looks as though that is included in the number of days of
snow lying, but how is the winter mean value defined (and the winter
rainfall total)? Was that the mean for the "traditional" three months of
DJF? If so then it seems inconsistent.

I'm surprised that 2010-11 doesn't make the top 20, given how cold and
snowy December 2010 was over much of the country.
--
John Hall "He crams with cans of poisoned meat
The subjects of the King,
And when they die by thousands G.K.Chesterton:
Why, he laughs like anything." from "Song Against Grocers"