In message ,
Scott W writes
On Thursday, 5 February 2015 13:13:18 UTC, wrote:
wrote in message
...
Having had a week of not so bitter weather with temps around 5C I was
expecting it to be colder today. So why, with 850 hPa indicating -8C here,
sub 528 dam, is it 6C and raining in the showers?
Long fetch off a super warm North Sea below 850 hPa melting the snowflakes
aloft. Sadly for you SE folk the days of sig. snow at low level are getting
rarer, unless the North Sea cools down more again in winters, it will remain
thus. At altitude, in places like Luton, snow will continue to occur
regularly but it will not be bitter. You are quickly becoming like the south
coast whereby the only time you will get sig. snow is if the 1000-500 hPa
thickness falls below 516 DAM, or you get a more continental air fetch or a
"special" synoptic setup like a slow moving front with a fetch off colder
land. Snow lovers need to gain latitude or altitude, preferably both.
Any idea on frequency, Will? I think December 2010 was considered a
once in 100 year event, whereas perhaps in the 1960s, it could be
considered a once in 15 year event.
I'm not Will, but since it was the coldest December since 1890 it could
hardly have been a once in 15 year event at any time during the 20th
century. Otherwise months that cold would have been more frequent. There
have only been eight sub-zero Decembers in the 350-odd years of the CET:
1676, 1788, 1796, 1874, 1878, 1890, 2010. So sub-zero Decembers might
have been a once in 15 year event in the late 1800s. Even before that,
though, there were a couple of very long gaps without any.
Have you seen the snowfall in Villablino, Spain. Well over a metre. The
location is at over 1,000m
https://twitter.com/JaimeDobleVFM/st...299072/photo/1
Impressive. There was a brief item on the BBC 1pm news about the snow in
northern Spain, but the footage they showed was of snow not nearly as
deep as that.
It looks as though Greece could have some exceptionally cold weather
next week.
--
I'm not paid to implement the recognition of irony.
(Taken, with the author's permission, from a LiveJournal post)