I have been a lurker here for a couple of years and I am truly
astonished about some of the participants obsession with cold spells.
The excitement and anticipation seems very strange to me, who the hell
wants a cold spell? Otherwise I can see no advantages only problems for:
drivers, homeless people, the elderly who are too afraid to turn their
heating up.

I have come up with three reasons that might explain your obsession:

1. Apart from extreme weather, hot or cold, meteorology is actually dead
boring. I mean taking temperatures and rain fall readings are actually
the metrological equivalent of train spotting. So the hankering for that
elusive cold spell keeps you all going.

2. You have a unhealthy desire to see people in distress: drivers,
homeless people, the elderly etc.

3. A cold winter, like the ones long ago, would allow you to push your
heads even further into the sand with regards to Global Warming. This
probably applies more to the older user of this newsgroup, it stands to
reason that as you have been around longer you have done more damage to
the planet than the younger participants. Try pulling your head out of
the sand, it may lead to tears and a few sleepless nights but the sooner
you face facts the better.


I also find unbelievable your dislike of the phrase "At least it will be
mild" This is a good thing! The TV weather forecasters obviously think
so. Who the hell wants to be cold? It is unnatural.


Please include in your replies some advantages of a cold spell. I can
think of none.

Jim

In article ,
Jim Green "nospam writes:
snip
Please include in your replies some advantages of a cold spell. I can
think of none.

Some of us still retain a child-like delight in snow, and the way it
transforms an otherwise boring vista into a thing of beauty. Since our
wishing for snow has no effect whatsoever on whether it will occur, we
surely don't need to feel guilty about wishing for it.

It's also true that extreme weather is more interesting than "normal"
weather, if only by virtue of its rarity. I'm sure that if we lived in
Lapland, say, most of us would soon lose our fascination with snow.

As for advantages of a cold winter, it may help to kill off some pests,
and also prevent some crops being tempted into precocious growth, when
they may be at risk of being cut down by frosts in spring. Cold winters
also are generally drier than mild ones, so the risk of flooding is
probably reduced.
--
John Hall

"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"Jim Green" "nospam !!!" wrote in message
...
I have been a lurker here for a couple of years and I am truly
astonished about some of the participants obsession with cold spells.

.... not long enough obviously ;-) Because one thing we can predict in
this newsgroup at this time of year is ...

(a) the threads discussing the prospect of cold/snowy weather multiply
alarmingly as Christmas approaches and
(b) there is always a counter-thread along the lines that you have just
posted.

As long as these constants are in place, we can all relax!

Martin.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:04:05 +0000, Jim Green "nospam !!!" wrote:

I have been a lurker here for a couple of years

If your first and only (hopefully) contribution to the newsgroup is to come in
and criticise, well you can "lurk off".

Martin


Jim

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:04:05 +0000, Jim Green wrote in


Please include in your replies some advantages of a cold spell. I can
think of none.

Very much personal, but I plucked up courage to ask my future wife to go
out with me for the first time, ice skating on one of the frozen (and
floodlit) ponds in a Birmingham park, during January 1963.

--
Mike 55.13°N 6.69°W Coleraine posted to uk.sci.weather 16/12/2004 11:37:48 UTC

Please include in your replies some advantages of a cold spell. I
can
think of none.



* I enjoy seeing economists bleating about how much it's costing
British industry

* I have an excuse not to go to work

* Stupid and/or incapable drivers get found out
* People falling over is always funny, fractured hip or not

Jim Green wrote:

1. Apart from extreme weather, hot or cold, meteorology is actually dead
boring. I mean taking temperatures and rain fall readings are actually
the metrological equivalent of train spotting. So the hankering for that
elusive cold spell keeps you all going.


Then you have successfully missed the whole point.
Collecting the data, analysing them and identifying patterns in them IS
the interesting point.
Sudden changes or opposite extremes can seriously ruin a good trend.

---
Gianna
www.buchan-meteo.org.uk

"Jim Green" "nospam !!!" wrote in message
...
I have been a lurker here for a couple of years and I am truly
astonished about some of the participants obsession with cold spells.
The excitement and anticipation seems very strange to me, who the hell
wants a cold spell? Otherwise I can see no advantages only problems for:
drivers, homeless people, the elderly who are too afraid to turn their
heating up.



Please include in your replies some advantages of a cold spell. I can
think of none.

With the advent of Christmas there is one very obvious advantage
of cold and snow. How will Santa manage to bring the toys to the
children if there is no ice for his sledge? The cost in replacement
runners needed because of wear on the tarmac, which seem to
be spreading at an alarming rate over the surface of this once green
and pleasant land, must surely outweigh the hospital bills of those
grannies whose tea trays hit obstacles and eject their occupants!

Besides, as Mike has pointed out, it brings back a touch of nostalgia
for those days in the sixties when snow was snow, and girls wore
stockingsgrin

Cheers, Alastair.



Jim

While John Hall still hasn't realised that cold weather here in winter
is usually a spell with little precipitation:

Some of us still retain a child-like delight in snow, and the way it
transforms an otherwise boring vista into a thing of beauty. Since our
wishing for snow has no effect whatsoever on whether it will occur, we
surely don't need to feel guilty about wishing for it.

..... It is still a matter of debate and location about the saw: "Too
warm to snow"

****
JPG and Martin Rowley of course displayed their usual magnaminity,
about which the least said the better.

****
Gianna Stefanni expressed strong views for someone who chooses to live
in a sheltered part of one of the UK's wildest regions:

you have successfully missed the whole point.
Collecting the data, analysing them and identifying patterns in them IS

the interesting point.


(That and the fact that winters cold spell are the same as summers hot
ones, another cool/hot topic here)

****
It took a dour Scot to bring a toutch of reality though:

it brings back a touch of nostalgia
for those days in the sixties when snow was snow, and girls wore
stockings and took them off at the end of the year (if they believed in
fairies) (grim)

****

In article .com,
Weatherlawyer writes:
While John Hall still hasn't realised that cold weather here in winter
is usually a spell with little precipitation:

Some of us still retain a child-like delight in snow, and the way it
transforms an otherwise boring vista into a thing of beauty. Since our
wishing for snow has no effect whatsoever on whether it will occur, we
surely don't need to feel guilty about wishing for it.

Not at all. I went on to point out that cold weather is most often dry
weather, so that one advantage of a cold winter may be that the risk of
flooding is less. I mentioned snow because most people here seem to be
snow enthusiasts rather than keen on cold weather for its own sake.


.... It is still a matter of debate and location about the saw: "Too
warm to snow"

Not much debate about that. "Too cold to snow" is a different matter.

Of course, the colder the air, the less moisture it can contain. But
colder on the ground is not always the same thing as colder at the
altitude from which the snow is falling.
--
John Hall "He crams with cans of poisoned meat
The subjects of the King,
And when they die by thousands G.K.Chesterton:
Why, he laughs like anything." from "Song Against Grocers"