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!