"Jon O'Rourke" wrote in message
...
"Chris Smith" wrote in message
...

If it snows in Norfolk this week, I'll eat my hat.

I think you'll be munching on a Stetson in 2 or 3 days, Chris :-)

Jon.



ROFL

I love it Jon.

Sleet getting heavier here now.

Will
--

" Ah yet another day to enjoy "
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Dave.C wrote:
Yes, saw it and realise yet again that I know nothing about forecasting.
From all angles, including past experience, looking at charts etc I would
have expected it to be colder. I had always thought that at this time of
year with the North Sea reaching it's coldest NE'lies were as cold as they
are likely to be.
Why 5-6C for the S.E. Answers on a postcard please. ;-)

Here's your postcard, Dave. The air at the source (N
Scandinavia, NW Russia) is not particularly cold. A few weeks ago it
would have been a different story. Agreed that simply looking at a
surface chart would give one the impression of a very cold spell but a
few thickness lines give the game away, not that they are always a
reliable guide in winter, with inversions. But the sea track will
ensure that any inversion is warmed out somewhat.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

In message , Jim
writes
Forecast for the week is for high pressure to sit to the north east of UK
and basically light rain sleet or snow in the north east and east no mention
of any appreciable falls of snow. Keen north east wind for most all week.
Temps 4c - 6c

I'm not expecting anything here!
Must admit when I saw Wills forecast it look like my 6 cms of snow in
November was going to get some serious competition but having just seen
the Country File forecast NO Worries!!
I reckon March may be the month when we see some snow, lets face it
there's more chance of snow in Autumn and Spring than Winter these days!
Just 9 more days before this SAD Winter ends
--
Graham

Graham wrote:


I reckon March may be the month when we see some snow, lets face it
there's more chance of snow in Autumn and Spring than Winter these days!

As forecast by N E Davis about 35 years ago! Well, "forecast" is perhaps too
strong a word but he did point out the 100-year (if I remember correctly)
temperature cycles of the seasons and that they were out of phase with each
other. Winters were at the low point of their cycle in the sixties and, if
the cycle continued, they would still be warming and heading for a maximum
in ten years time. Autumns were in about an opposite phase to winters and
were then just passing their maximum and so should be reaching their
coldest point in a decade. Springs had just come to the end of a 50-year
warm period and were headed for 50 cold years. I can't remember the pattern
for the summers but am guessing the opposite phase to the springs.

--
Graham Davis
Bracknell

I'm going to be blunt.

The only people 'disappointed' by the country file forecast, are the
ones that bought into false hype

Everyone was hoping the BBC Forecasts would come into line with THEIR
OWN wishes

Sorry, but i think some people are living in an alternate reality.

One where, some sort of blizzard, or country-wide snowfall are always
just a few days away, but never materalises.... down that road...
awaits depression (not of the weather type)

Mostly fueled by (you know who)

Go see the front page of:
http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/

"Winter Returns - Blizzards for some"

That's the alternate reality i'm talking about

"Will Hand" wrote in message
...

"Jon O'Rourke" wrote in message
...
"Chris Smith" wrote in message
...

If it snows in Norfolk this week, I'll eat my hat.

I think you'll be munching on a Stetson in 2 or 3 days, Chris :-)



You could always start with some wild berets. Hmmm.....lovley with cream.

Thanks for the postcard, Tudor ;-) I understand what you are saying but it's
still not that obvious compared to event last year which had air temps of
around 1-3C for that week. The southern North Sea is showing 5-6C atm which
I believe is lower than last year and the wind the track is quite rapid. I
thought the continent was even warmer last year. Wednesday is forecast to be
7C max with -7C 850 hPa. Will also has seemed a bit surprised by this but I
take your point and realise there must be different factors this year.
Thanks,
Dave
"Tudor Hughes" wrote in message
oups.com...

Dave.C wrote:
Yes, saw it and realise yet again that I know nothing about forecasting.
From all angles, including past experience, looking at charts etc I
would
have expected it to be colder. I had always thought that at this time of
year with the North Sea reaching it's coldest NE'lies were as cold as
they
are likely to be.
Why 5-6C for the S.E. Answers on a postcard please. ;-)

Here's your postcard, Dave. The air at the source (N
Scandinavia, NW Russia) is not particularly cold. A few weeks ago it
would have been a different story. Agreed that simply looking at a
surface chart would give one the impression of a very cold spell but a
few thickness lines give the game away, not that they are always a
reliable guide in winter, with inversions. But the sea track will
ensure that any inversion is warmed out somewhat.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.

Graham P Davis wrote:

As forecast by N E Davis about 35 years ago! Well, "forecast" is perhaps too
strong a word but he did point out the 100-year (if I remember correctly)
temperature cycles of the seasons and that they were out of phase with each
other. Winters were at the low point of their cycle in the sixties and, if
the cycle continued, they would still be warming and heading for a maximum
in ten years time. Autumns were in about an opposite phase to winters and
were then just passing their maximum and so should be reaching their
coldest point in a decade. Springs had just come to the end of a 50-year
warm period and were headed for 50 cold years. I can't remember the pattern
for the summers but am guessing the opposite phase to the springs.

Interesting speculation on cycles. Obviously there was nothing to go on
for the state of the ice cover in the Arctic but he seems to have made
a good stab at the same results with the tools he had available to him.
Who was this genius?

And can anybody forward me a copy of this article. I'd hate to have to
go to the Yanks for it:


The variability of the onset of spring in Britain

Author: N.E. DAVIS

Source: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Volume
98, Number 418, October 1972, pp. 763-777(15)

Publisher:Royal Meteorological Society


Abstract:
The first day of spring is defined in terms of daily maximum
temperatures. Spring at Oxford as defined begins some time between the
third week of February and the last week of April. The average date
shows a secular change over the last hundred years.

The date of the first day of spring is shown to be related to ice
conditions in the Baltic and in the Iceland area, to the sea
temperature pattern in the North Atlantic, the circulation patterns at
500 mb and to various atmospheric indices. Rules developed from these
relationships enable 'statistical' forecasts for the first day of
spring to be made.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1256/smsqj.41804

Weatherlawyer wrote:



Interesting speculation on cycles. Obviously there was nothing to go on
for the state of the ice cover in the Arctic but he seems to have made
a good stab at the same results with the tools he had available to him.
Who was this genius?


What might have appeared obvious is not completely true. In the late sixties
and early seventies, I used to brief the Met Office long-range-forecast
team each month as to ice conditions in the Arctic. To be fair, the amount
of actual data was variable. We were only able to start using satellite
data in about '65 and that wasn't a great deal of help in the depths of
winter. Even summer was a problem due to the large amounts of low cloud
over the Arctic. Infrared pictures came in later but they didn't show up
thin ice and also low cloud was again a problem.

We had ship reports and some aircraft recces but coverage wasn't great.
Commercial airlines had just started flying over the Arctic and we
persuaded them to mark the ice edge on a postcard as they over-flew it and
to post it to us after landing. Where we had no reports we relied on
degree-day data and pressure charts (mainly 10-day means).

The normals in ice atlases were generally quite reliable but with a few
glaring exceptions. For instance, until the first satellite data arrived,
it was believed that the centre of Hudson Bay remained ice-free throughout
the year as opposed to what we soon found out, which was that it was
covered for half the year.

That's all drifting off the subject a bit however. I can't remember what
data N E Davis used - this was in a talk he gave at the Met Office at the
end of 1969 and my memory isn't that good - but I suspect that tree rings
came into it somewhere. As far as I recall, these cycles applied to the UK
only. In 1975, the Global Atmospheric Research Program produced an analysis
of global temperature in terms of five cycles, ranging in length from 100
to 10,000 years. This was based on 700,000 years of paleoclimatic data.
There has probably been more research on these lines since then but I'm a
bit out of touch.


--
Graham Davis
Bracknell

Graham P Davis wrote:

What might have appeared obvious is not completely true. In the late sixties
and early seventies, I used to brief the Met Office long-range-forecast
team each month as to ice conditions in the Arctic. To be fair, the amount
of actual data was variable. We were only able to start using satellite
data in about '65 and that wasn't a great deal of help in the depths of
winter. Even summer was a problem due to the large amounts of low cloud
over the Arctic. Infrared pictures came in later but they didn't show up
thin ice and also low cloud was again a problem.

We had ship reports and some aircraft recces but coverage wasn't great.
Commercial airlines had just started flying over the Arctic and we
persuaded them to mark the ice edge on a postcard as they over-flew it and
to post it to us after landing. Where we had no reports we relied on
degree-day data and pressure charts (mainly 10-day means).

The normals in ice atlases were generally quite reliable but with a few
glaring exceptions. For instance, until the first satellite data arrived,
it was believed that the centre of Hudson Bay remained ice-free throughout
the year as opposed to what we soon found out, which was that it was
covered for half the year.

That's all drifting off the subject a bit however. I can't remember what
data N E Davis used - this was in a talk he gave at the Met Office at the
end of 1969 and my memory isn't that good - but I suspect that tree rings
came into it somewhere. As far as I recall, these cycles applied to the UK
only. In 1975, the Global Atmospheric Research Program produced an analysis
of global temperature in terms of five cycles, ranging in length from 100
to 10,000 years. This was based on 700,000 years of paleoclimatic data.
There has probably been more research on these lines since then but I'm a
bit out of touch.

Thanks for the reply. I haven't anything positive to say against
dendochronology per se but I have a deep suspicion of it.

And of course it is the only chronologically logical model we can rely
on, there being massive problems with every other dating method. The
best of which (radio active carbon) is extremely iffy.

Imagine putting great pedestals of modern thought and the abandonment
of thousands of years of ancient ideals, on ideas less reliable than
our knowledge of the surface conditions of the Hudson Bay.

Crackers isn't it? I feel like going out and voting for a chimpanzee.