UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

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Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

It is certainly turning a lot colder, spwill, but the models are struggling with both the length of the cold spell and the amount of snow that might fall. They seem to be back tracking from the snowmageddon they were forecasting a few days ago and now limiting any significant snow in the south of the UK to places close to the east coast - a warm North Sea (relatively speaking) always provides good energy and moisture for coastal showers in winter easterlies. I am not expecting to see even a flake of snow here in Tiverton - just days of cold and cloudy weather with a nagging easterly breeze.

The colder weather is now pushing into eastern counties of England with the temperature falling below zero during Sunday morning in these areas and snow is falling and settling mostly to the east of London. I don't think they will rival the 50cm+ reported in quite a few parts of the habited parts of the Scottish Highlands, but 20-25cm is certainly possible over the South Downs and close to the coast.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55968889

The CET for February was 5.1°C (+0.6°C) up to the 6th and the EWR was 30mm up to the 5th which is 46% of the monthly average of 65mm.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The cold weather has continued with an 'ice day' in much of the south east of England where quite a bit of snow has fallen (up to 20-25cm near the east coast). The coldest places by day were in the Home Counties + parts of inland East Anglia and the lowest maximums for Monday 8th February were:

-2.5*C at Wych Cross (East Sussex)
-2.4*C at Kenley (Surrey) + Cavendish (Suffolk)
-1.9*C at High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire)
-1.8*c at High Beach (Essex) + Andrewsfield (also Essex)

Even London Heathrow only managed a maximum of -0.5*C.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55968889

It looks like remaining cold for the rest of the week with further snow showers in the east and some frontal snow pushing into more western parts later in the week. I'm not sure if this Atlantic push will succeed against the cold block.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The cold wave has continued across the UK with snowfall continuing in eastern counties. However, it must be stressed that snowfall of any note has only affected about a third of the county with the rest seeing no more than a flurry or two. However, this has certainly been the coldest spell of weather since Feb/Mar 2018 and has badly affected Scotland and parts of eastern England. Last night was the coldest night in the UK for over 25 years and the minimum temperatures for Thursday 11th February were all in Scotland:

-23.0°C at Braemar (about 2ft of snow on the ground here)
-21.3°C at Kinbrace Hatchery
-20.9°C at Balmoral (also about 2ft of snow here)
-19.9°C at Altnaharra
-18.7°C at Aviemore

These are the lowest temperatures recorded in the UK since December 1995 and the lowest in February since 1955.

It has not been quite so cold here in the south, but some sites in the SE of England have not been above zero since Sunday morning, i.e. 4 days ago.

Looking forward, it will remain cold for a day or two more, but as fronts push in from the west, a strong and cold SE wind will pick up and rain/snow will slowly move eastwards. It looks like the milder air will win out by the end of the weekend.
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The cold spell is coming to an end over the current weekend with mild air flooding in off the Atlantic. The frost is slowly lifting in more eastern parts during today (Sunday 14th Feb) and here in the SW the mercury has already passed 10°C.

For those of us living in the SW, it has been hard to understand the fuss about the cold and snow because we have just not seen it. This winter has shown me very clearly how much more benign the weather is in the SW of England - all we get is wind and rain.

The Met Office have displayed the temperature trace for Braemar (at just 327m amsl in the Scottish Highlands) on their Twitter feed that shows it was below freezing continuously from the morning of the 6th to the morning of the 14th - a total of 8 days.

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/13 ... 2133928961

The CET figures have not been updated for a while, but the Feb figure was 3.6°C (-0.8°C) up to the 9th and the EWR was 38mm also up to the 9th, which is 58% of the monthly average.

The models are mild, mild and more mild going forward and suggest 16/17°C maximums for the south by next weekend - a second lockdown Spring. :-)
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The cold weather eased away into the continent and this week has been very mild and unsettled and this theme looks set to continue well into next week. There is likely to be a lot of rain in more western parts before it begins to dry up into next week - there is the prospect of high pressure building over the UK to give us some dry and mild weather and hopefully a bit more sunshine.

It was sunny yesterday (Thurs 18th Feb) morning here in Tiverton after the overnight rain had cleared, but the sunshine and an unstable westerly flow enabled some decent convection to get going later in the morning and we had a heavy hail shower just after lunch. Let's hope this is an early taster of things to come when it warms up a bit more.

The cold snap brought lots of great photos of things such as ice pancakes and ice hair, but there were many photos of impressive ice build-ups on unfortunate plants and shrubs that were next to snow covered roads where the snow melted a bit during the day and the resulting spray of water from passing traffic coated them in ice. The BBC carried a good example and there are many other photos further down the thread on this Tweet:

https://twitter.com/bbcweather/status/1 ... 5758593026

The CET for February was 3.6°C (on average) up to the 18th and the EWR was 58mm up to the 17th, which is 89% of the monthly average. These will both be trending higher for the rest of the month.
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

It has been very mild over the last few days as a southerly flow has been maintained over the UK. This has given quite a bit of rain to more western and northern parts, but plenty of mild and dry weather to the SE corner - and hazy sunshine as well. Wednesday (24th Feb) was the warmest day of the year so far and the highest recorded temperatures on this day were:

18.4°C at Santon Downham
18.2°C at RAF Coningsby
17.9°C at Weybourne

London was not quite as warm, but St James Park did record 16.5°C as a maximum.

A high pressure system (1040mb+) is drifting NE into the UK at the moment and will persist over southern parts through the weekend and into next week and this will give most of the nation dry and settled weather - it will still be on the mild side, but we will see frost at night where the skies remain clear.

The CET for February was 5.1°C (+1.4°C) up to the 24th and the EWR was 76mm up to the 23rd, which is 116% of the monthly average.
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The high pressure has become established over the UK and currently sits at 1041mb with twin centres over Germany and southern England. This has given us three clear and sunny days over much of the UK with a few sites breaking 10 hours sunshine in the day. We have seen a frost at night, but it has been pleasantly warm during the day with many places reaching 10-13°C - a taste of early Spring.

This high pressure cell will move away to the SE over the next few days, but there will then be a build of pressure from the NW which will introduce a more easterly flow by the middle of next week - so turning colder again, but not anywhere near as cold as earlier this month. It should remain mostly dry, but the cloud will progressively fill-in from tomorrow and sunshine will be had at a premium. Best to enjoy today (Sun 28h Feb) as it is gin blue skies and light winds today and quite mild considering there was a frost this morning.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Winter 2020/21

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The final CET for February was 5.1°C which is +1.4°C above average - despite the mid-month cold spell. The final EWR for February was 79mm which is 121% of the monthly average.

The Met Office have produced a summary of both February and the winter as a whole. Over the UK, winter 2020/21 was a little colder than average, definitely wetter than average and a little on the dull side. As usual this summary hides the regional variations - for example, Scotland had a 15% excess of sunshine whilst the rest of us had a similar figure but as a deficit.

Quite a range of temperatures in February over the whole of the UK - from a low of -23.0°C at Braemar on the 11th to a high of 18.4°C at Santon Downham on the 24th, giving a range of 41.4°C.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/p ... uary-stats
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