Yup, Jan 25th was the last clear dawn here in high Wycombe! And this week
although it's been pretty dull for a lot of the time, there has been more
sunshine than in the previous 3 weeks put together! And so far it's been a
GLORIOUS morning here! Perishing cold with a biting north wind, but glorious!

Next week looks like seeing yet more gloom here with howling bitterly cold east
winds bringing frequent snow flurries. I don't anticipate much here, but the
east coast & up to 30 miles inland could get large amounts of snow due to the
lake effect off the North Sea & frontal waves carried along in the strong east
winds. East winds at this time of the year really do emphasise the old weather
proverb: "when the wind is in the east, it is good for neither man nor beast."

Grads is forecasting sub 522DAM (& 516DAM pretty close by) air for most of the
week here with 850mB tems at -8C max! Still, nothing unusual he the forecast
mild air that the rest of the country has enjoyed for the last three weeks or so
never materialised here (well except for last Sunday morning when the temp at
8am touched 10.0C for the first time in 6 weeks! It didn't last long though: by
lunchtime the temp had dropped to 5.2C). Monday the max was 4.7C, Tuesday 5.4C,
Wednesday just 3.6C and Thursday 5.8C. Friday did touch 8.2C for a while until
the rain cleared, when the temp plummeted back to 3.7C in just an hour!
Currently the temp is just 3.6C.

As Will has hinted at, when these these east/north-east winds set in at this
time of the year, they can literally take months to shift! (7 months in 1986 &
Dec 1995 - June 1996 when we had predominantly east winds for more than 6
months). The jet stream locked in a pattern curling down at high speed from the
north pole via Siberia back to the mid Atlantic where it meets the equatorial
jet. Rossby waves aren't supposed to last THAT long though!

Hope you've all got your pipes well lagged!

Nigel.

Aagh! Every time I learn something new... it pushes something old out of my brain!

Grads is forecasting sub 522DAM (& 516DAM pretty close by) air for most of
the
week here with 850mB tems at -8C max! Still, nothing unusual he the
forecast
mild air that the rest of the country has enjoyed for the last three weeks
or so
never materialised here (well except for last Sunday morning when the temp
at
8am touched 10.0C for the first time in 6 weeks! It didn't last long
though: by
lunchtime the temp had dropped to 5.2C). Monday the max was 4.7C, Tuesday
5.4C,
Wednesday just 3.6C and Thursday 5.8C. Friday did touch 8.2C for a while
until
the rain cleared, when the temp plummeted back to 3.7C in just an hour!
Currently the temp is just 3.6C.

Much the same in St Albans last week with Monday's max 5.9°C, Tuesday 6.1°C,
Wednesday 4.2°C, Thursday 5.7°C and Friday a brief rise to 9.2°C. It has
been up to 5.3°C today in a sheltered back garden but my north wall
thermometer in the front is registering below 4°C. It did reach 13.2°C here
a week ago.

Very pleasant in the conservatory ( much to the cat's delight)with the sun
warming the whole house up.

Alan

"Nigel Morgan" wrote in message
...
Yup, Jan 25th was the last clear dawn here in high Wycombe! And this
week
although it's been pretty dull for a lot of the time, there has been
more
sunshine than in the previous 3 weeks put together!

Hi, Nigel,

I was down your way last weekend on the way to Clapham to see daughter
and Finchley to see No. 2 son.

The weather on Sunday was beautiful and clear, almost up to Copley
standards. I like London though, so perhaps I was a little biased. There
was a snow shower in Isleworth (so a good night there, Gareth!) and the
walk across the Milennium Bridge was bracing to say the least.

In fact swmbo had never been so cold, or so she said. Perhaps the Copley
wardrobe would have been more appropriate, but it's how you look
apparently!

ATB,

--
Ken Cook, Copley (5miles north of Barnard Castle), County Durham.
830ft
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/copley
(MO climat. site updated before 10Z and 19Z daily)
kencookATcopleydurham.freeserve.co.uk
(All times GMT)

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:26:29 -0000, "Ken Cook"
inspired by Deep Thought wrote:

"Nigel Morgan" wrote in message
.. .
Yup, Jan 25th was the last clear dawn here in high Wycombe! And this
week
although it's been pretty dull for a lot of the time, there has been
more
sunshine than in the previous 3 weeks put together!

Hi, Nigel,

I was down your way last weekend on the way to Clapham to see daughter
and Finchley to see No. 2 son.

The weather on Sunday was beautiful and clear, almost up to Copley
standards. I like London though, so perhaps I was a little biased. There
was a snow shower in Isleworth (so a good night there, Gareth!) and the
walk across the Milennium Bridge was bracing to say the least.

In fact swmbo had never been so cold, or so she said. Perhaps the Copley
wardrobe would have been more appropriate, but it's how you look
apparently!

ATB,
Hi Ken glad you enjoyed "The Smoke!". Well all I can say is you were lucky! We
DID see the sun briefly here last Sunday, but only briefly. As I said in an
earlier post, when I worked at Wembley some years ago, I lost count of the
number of mornings I would leave a wet & gloomy High Wycombe - only to drive
into sunshine and a brilliant morning once I got past junction 2 of the M40
(Beaconsfield). It happened time after time after time after time! This has
been FAR AND AWAY the gloomiest 12 months I have ever known. We have gone
longer periods in the past without seeing the sun (June 1987 springs to mind ie.
2 weeks 5 days with no sun at all) but never so consistently gloomy week in week
out. It has also been the overall coldest 12 months here since 1986! Only
September was above average. All other months the mean temps were average or
lower.

As far as I am concerned, global warming is nothing more than a load of hot air!

This morning we had our second clear dawn since Jan 25th, but after 10:30 am,
the sun has all but disappeared. The current temp is just 2.2C, and the gloom
has returned again!

Having watched the Countryfile forecast, I'm convinced we will see very little
if any sunshine for the next 7 days! What we WILL see is 100% cloud cover, a
howling, biting easterly wind with bands of snow flurries running west with the
air flow, and an absolute max. temp of 3C each day! Yuk! The low temps don't
bother me much, but the gloom & east winds do!

And to think that this time 2 years ago we were enjoying daytime temps of 16C
and wall to wall sunshine.

My outlook for the spring & summer this year is a repeat of 1978 - i.e. the year
the spring & summer never arrived!

Nigel

Aagh! Every time I learn something new... it pushes something old out of my brain!