On Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 12:16:03 PM UTC, Graham Easterling wrote:
SNIP
V. cold Yr Normal Yr.
Penzance 2010 2016
MIN MAX MIN MAX
24/11 2.2 9.1 5.4 12.7
25/11 0.5 6.3 7.6 10.3
26/11 2.1 7.4 7.2 10.1
27/11 0.6 4.2 3.7 9.8
28/11 -4.3! 4.6 5.7 9.7
29/11 -3.8 3.3 3.4 8.0
30/11 -2.0 3.2 0.1 10.7
01/12 -0.6 3.1 1.3 11.5
02/12 -1.5 2.3 2.5 10.4
03/12 -3.0 6.1 7.3 9.7
04/12 -0.7 8.7 8.0 11.4 (at 09:00 today)
05/12 2.8 5.8 9.3 (13.0C looks likely)

Where are people like Lamb & Philip Eden to add a bit of historically
perspective when you need them?

..................................................

Well it was a cold month up here on Dartmoor (also in the SW). Hard frozen
ground on quite a few days.

Nothing like a real cold month though, bore no relation to 2010 say.

And there has been a distinct lack of real rain,
just one wet day in November (with over 60mm).

But that's significantly more than your wettest day in Philip Hammond's stormy Nov 2015, when your wettest day was 40.8mm according to my COL database. The railway line was washed away this year, no such issues in Nov. 2015..

My last really wet November was 2009 with 270mm. 2015 just 142.8mm

Philip Eden was not respected in the MetO due to his constant sniping
from the sidelines.

Will
--

I've a lot more respect for Philip Eden than the MetO (as an organisation with their "Who needs people or actual observations when you have so much computing power" attitude.) It was such a different and much more approachable organisation back in the 20th century, often helpful even. I even had people pop around to drop in satellite imagery in those pre broadband days. That's not to say there aren't good people still working in the MetO, but they are disappearing by the day.

Philip supplied me with so much historical data, as well as equipment & friendship.


Philip Eden was always completely selfless with his time whenever I had, mostly email, contact with him. My contact with the Met Office now is erratic ; how helpful they are seems to depend on how sympathetic the librarian is on the day. Sometimes you get the: "We can offer this service for your climate stats needs..." the service cost is often out the reach of amateurs.

Contrast this to an episode in the late 1980s when I was enquiring about drawings for a Stevenson screen. I was put through to the woodwork department (I think) - a very helpful gentleman, in an understandably bemused tone, agreed to send me draughtsman quality drawings for a wooden screen on the understanding that I would use them to produce only one screen for my own use..
I somehow can't imagine that happening today.