On Thursday, 6 February 2014 23:46:35 UTC, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Scott W wrote: Having just returned from Haute Savoie I was hoping that there would be some light on the horizon from this interminable rain, but alas. The Alpine locals said they can't remember a winter of such variability, they've got good snow but the weather has been up and down like a yo-yo with no long settled, sunny spells, which is often a characteristic of January. The snow line has also been high most of the winter. At one point yesterday I was skiing in heavy rain at 650m - this gradually lowered through the day, the snow lowering the wet bulb temperature. There was a covering of 5cm at 650m before the weather cleared. Anyway at least I've had some sort of snow fix this winter. Looking back at past winters the synoptic pattern this year is indeed very rare. If the pattern stays until the end of the month I would have given the probability at the start of winter as between 5 and 10 per cent. I suppose it just goes to show that precedents are there to be broken and we haven't yet got all the tools to predict a season ahead, if we ever will? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Although less in amounts than other areas it may be even more extreme for some Eastern parts like East Essex where the rain often peters out making it the driest part of the Country. With such power in the jet stream they have been pushing right through this winter. I've commented recently about a lack of this weather type in recent years and this has certainly compensated for that!

The contrast between my rainfall and yours shows that rainfall totals are quite variable from place to place and less predictable than temperature. (January rainfall here 239 mm, December 180 mm). Overall the cyclonicity of the winter so far is unusual but not exceptional even if my rainfall totals are. The autumn and winter of 2000-01 were as cyclonic if not more so than the present conditions. There were fewer severe gales though.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, NE Surrey, 556 ft.