On Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 7:57:00 PM UTC, Adam Lea wrote:
On 05/12/2016 10:23, Graham Easterling wrote:
The forecasters have been going on about cold, lack of stormy weather and the like for an age now.
But it hasn't been that cold has it? I mean, there's been some cold nights, notably in the Somerset levels & Thames valley, but overall http://www..met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/anomt.jpg more places have been mild of late.
I saw a recent video clip where John Hammond went on about the lack of storminess compared with last year. True, if you live in much of Scotland, NW England or N Wales, so it was unfortunate that he showed a picture of a stormy Penzance prom. Not sure when it was taken, but certainly not last November as was implied, when the stongest gust here was just 44mph and there were only 2 days with onshore winds. In fact pointing to an example from SW England was a bad call as Nov 2016 has been a wetter than 2015 across much of the southern half of England. In the SW whilst nothing much happened in November last year, the railway line was washed away in several places this year. He should have pointed to somewhere 'up north'.
Anyway, back to the cold - or rather lack of it.
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?
I think part of the issue is people now spend so much time gazing into model forecasts, supported by a stream of MetO 'it's going to a cold, cold winter' clips, that actual observations fall into 2nd place. I won't go into a rant about the MetO lack of interest in observations, but if you ask me . . .
Graham
Penzance
November has been a chilly month in Surrey and Sussex, with frequent
frosts, temperatures down to mid-low single digits and overnight
temperatures down to -6C last week. It has also been a benign and fairly
sunny month, with frequent anticyclonic influence. I would say that in
my location, November 2016 felt more like an average January in terms of
temperature. The CET and observations on the UKWeatherworld forum
support my claim that November was colder than normal in many places in
the UK.
I did say that there were clearly variations place to place, however, in SE England most places were -0.5 to -1.2C compared to the norm, so on the cold side, but in no way very cold.
Uasing a month like December 2010 as a benchmark for cold in the UK is
ridiculous. That month has something like a 100 year return level for
temperature, and was one of very few months in the last 100 years to
have a negative CET value. You wouldn't write off every winter storm
that affects southern England and caused damage and disruption and
didn't exceed the October 1987 storm wind speeds just because it is more
frequent in the Shetland islands.
I only referred to 2010, as it was the last really cold November. 2010 may have a return period of 100 years, 2016 certainly didn't! There have been 6 colder Novembers in the last 25 years here. I see nothing wrong in using a true extreme event to put other rather 'cold' months into historical perspective.
What next, are we going to say a
summer day is not hot unless it compares to the 36-38C temperatures
experienced last July, July 2006 and August 2003?
I thought I'd already said I was talking about variances from the norm, charts of which are widely available. So yes, if you have a hot spell it is interesting to see how it compares to an extreme year in your location. In the case of Penzance, 32C would be a new record for any month.
Graham
Penzance