On Tue, 06 Jan 2015 01:58:42 +0000
Dave Cornwell wrote:

Scott W wrote:
On Monday, 5 January 2015 23:14:39 UTC, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Looking at the historic charts earlier I noticed that there were
several, especially early on, that didn't look that cold. I know
there were several threatened thaws (probably based on expected
evolution of those charts)that didn't happen. After a very snowy
start I seem to remember much of the UK and Europe remained snow
covered. How much would that have depressed the temperature had
there not been such widespread cover? I wonder if the same charts
showed up now whether the same expectation of cold would
materialise. I doubt it, with Europe being relatively mild still,
sea temperatures warmer and I suppose +1C for GW. Dave

An interesting theory, Dave, but wasn't much of the North West very
sunny with little snow during the period.

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Not as bad in NW and parts of Scotland for sure although I think they
had some snow around. But South and East of there and throughout most
of Northern Europe had snow cover for at least a couple of months as
I remember.

One point often forgotten about that winter is that it was pretty cold
before the Boxing Day snow. The CET average mean temperature for
December was only +1.8C with average min of -1.1C (there have only
been 10 Decembers with sub-zero mins since 1900). The ground was frozen
hard before the snow fell and, at the time, we thought this was as
least as important in maintaining the cold spell as the snow cover.

By the end of February, the North Sea SST had areas such as the
Dogger Bank that were sub-zero so that wasn't much help as a source of
warmth.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks.
[Retired meteorologist and computer programmer]
Posted with Claws: http://www.claws-mail.org/