Winter Weather 2016/17 - General Discussion

Rebelbrowser wrote: »

There's no evidence at all that this mild and / or wet weather will last for the rest of the month. On the contrary most indications are for HP dominated weather by Christmas week. Keep the faith coldies....

To back this up (by way of example only) the latest GFS shows below chart for 20 December (I know its far in FI but its the best guidance we have got right now...). Nothing mild about this.

To many of us high pressure dominated inversion cold aka faux cold which has no hope of snow,while nice to be out and about in,is boring
Inversion high pressure cold stifles precipitation and is lifted away in the blink of an eye by incoming precipitation

Boring,Boring,Boring

The thing that crashes this forum with people is the possibility of a true cold that wafts in from places unaffected by the Atlantic mixing i.e. The east / northeast/sometimes the north and the chance of snow
I say possibility because it often doesn't pan out but there's excitement in 'nearly there's'
An aul high pressure that eventually sinks into Europe which eventually ends up ensuring westerlies is no good

As blocking goes,I refer to those blocking highs as c0ck blocks because they bloody well are a hindrance not a help

I was working in the rain this morning - all morning. Wet weather gear on but in the wind it still got in wet hands, damp cuffs and collar Bleugh!

pauldry wrote: »

even though mild will dominate the rest of Winter IMO there will be some cooler interludes and you never know.

Very wavy jetstream this year means when we are on the mild side we get exceptionally mild but if we were to go to the cold side for a few days then its back to -7c again like November in Markree.

Mild will dominate the rest of winter?

Absolute nonsense and completely unfounded.

ArKl0w wrote: »

Can you tell me how many winters mild hasn't dominated? None I'd say
That's what that's founded on
It's not Minnesota we're in

Mild will probably lose its domination for a number of days from time to time and anything can happen
The form horse for snow in Ireland is march and April when it's usually too late to be significant

Mild definitely didn't dominate in 2009/2010 or 1962/1963

ArKl0w wrote: »

Ah come on now,there was a week or two of easterly in 2009 that's mild dominating
November December 2010,an exceptionally rare period gave way to two thirds of mild domination
I'll give you mid Dec 62 to end February '63 alright
But the point is rarities cannot be counted on to be examples of the future
They are not our climate norm
Sure anything can happen,it is chaos theory
But the form horse is our normal climate
Anything else could happen but there's little or nothing in the worth looking at models at this stage pointing to abnormal winter weather for us yet

No way Dec 2009 (2.9C), January 2010 (1.7C), February 2010 (2.7C) averages for my local weather station, Carlow Oak Park. That's 3C below average for the winter as a whole. That's a huge drop. Imagine a summer averages 15.5C and one averaged 18.5C. That has never happened. Infact only one month got over 18.5C i.e. August 1995 at 18.9C.

That winter was dominated by northerlies and north westerlies as well as the 3-4 weeks easterlies. Snow was recorded each month in Carlow, Oak Park.

A hill climate in any country though is not the same as the countries normal climate where most people live

Aswell as that,periods of anti cyclonic inversion cold don't count in any winter in my book as they won't lead to snow
Regardless point stands,our weather doesn't do snow normally so expecting it to do so when there's no synoptic build up yet is irrational

But then again,we're all irrational in a weather forum,it's compulsory,I should know:D

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

That type of clear well thought out and thoroughly logical argument will not go down well here but for my money you've hit the nail on the head completely.

I don't think the thread ever even bordered on the rational;)

It's seems to always be a thread of hope (despair!) that this is the 1 in 50 year like 1962/63 and 2009/2010:D

Now a mild or relatively mild winter can always give you a decent snowfall. Many examples at lower level. January 1982, January 1987, February 1991, December 2000 (northern half of country), Christmas Day 2004, February 2009 to name but a few mildish winters in the last 35 years with decent snowfall events. There was a mild winter 2010/2011 which had some snow in December iirc.:D

Also there's the problem that southern, eastern and south eastern coastal areas of Ireland see the least amount of snow. While a large percentage of the population live there they are not representative of snowfall on the land mass of the country as a whole.

That's why we all have different perceptions of cold spells. Arkl0w defines a cold spell by prolonged snow which is a good way of describing it. I look at how much colder than average a winter is, e.g. 2009/10 being 3C colder than average and inland areas receiving plenty of snow. We were messaging yesterday and i described how much snow i've seen due to altitude. I neglected to say inland areas at lower level see a fair bit more than on the coast. So there are different perceptions. The gulf stream has a lot to answer for!

But yes we're a hopeful crowd on here hoping it's the 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 year