Return to the Gardening in the UK Forum
| Post a Follow-Up
Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
Posted by torreya-2006 Z9 swb (My Page) on Sun, Jan 20, 08 at 13:58
| Hi all
Does anyone here think that our winters have been
a lot milder or that we are just getting a run of
mild winters and they have been a lot milder.Its
been 13c/55f here but some snow would be fun ive
seen blue bell shoots come up in the wood. So things
are warming up.They however did say that this winter
would be a cold one but its so far been as mild as
the last one.However I think we will get a cold
winter but not as bad as the ones in the past due
to global warming we will have to see. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
I think they are getting warmer. The winters we had when I was a child and in the early 80s often had long spells of snow and bitterly cold temperatures - we have seen nothing like it for years. But I would like to see overall statistics to see if they support my impressions.
I'm enjoying this mild spell, dank and gloomy though it is. I hate the cold and being bundled up in scarves and gloves, it's nice to have a respite. And every mild day that passes gets us nearer to spring! Although I remember some horrible Februaries and in 1947 (as my elderly aunt loves to point out) the snow did not begin till March! |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Resin Are you going to tune in? |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Just a run of mild winters. Some other places are having severe winters at the moment (e.g. China, at the moment). Global warming is definitely happening, but there's only been slightly less than a degree of warming in the last 100 years, and that's a lot less than annual random variation. Sooner or later, there'll be more winters almost as bad as that 1947 one, or 1962/63, or 1981/82, etc. Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
Im still hopeing for some snow before winters out I don't
remeber the 1981/82 winter all that well however when I
was a kid and lived up in Oxfordshire the early and mid
eightys were very snowy used to get 3 to 6 inches it was
a whiteout.However the late eightys ninetys the winters
got wetter and a lot warmer and I got frustrated because
I knew that I would not get the day off school.Here in
Devon well in this part anyway it snows every 7 years.I
think Febuary could be colder than normal.I wait for a
whiteout as were still in the thick of winter. |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| You don't want a whiteout, and I'll bet you've never been in one, either ;-) . . . . that's when snow whipped up off the ground by storm force winds is so thick in the air, that visibility is less than half a metre. That means, stretch your hand out in front of you, and you can't see it. And you can't see your feet, or the ground. I know someone who has been in one (in the Scottish mountains), and he said it is very, very nasty - totally disorientating, you lose all sense of direction, not just north, south, etc., but also up and down. Walking, and even standing, are impossible. All you can do is sit tight until it eases off, or (at best) crawl on all fours, with a compass in your hand to tell you which way to go. Needless to say, extremely dangerous. Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| I ment when the snow covers everything like 3 inches I should have explained myself better. |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| That's what I thought ;-)) Despite all the dire warnings of heavy snow on the weather forecast today, it's +3 degrees with rain and a bit of sleet here at the moment. Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Despite the apparent warm-ness of the last, say, 5-10 winters, they have statistically been less than a degree warmer month by month than the corresponding reference period. Note that the reference period of 1961-1990 included both the coldest winter in who knows how many decades as well as several notably cold winters in the first half of the 80s. 2007, for example, was overall a little over a degree warmer than the average, made up of a summer right around average temperatures, autumn a degree warmer than average, and both winter and spring over 2C warmer than the average. 2006 was almost the opposite. The overall average was just slightly warmer than 2007, but with winter and spring only slightly warmer than average, while summer and autumn were over 2C warmer than the average. The numbers don't sound big, but if you remember summer 2006 then you'll know that 2C is quite a difference. So to answer your question, no winter this century has been cooler than the average for that 1961-1990 period, they have been up to 2C warmer than the average. There is some variation across the UK but that general description holds more or less anywhere. Snow flurries here, nothing sticking down in the valley where I am but supposedly blizzard conditions in the hills. Heavier snow showers and some accumulation is forecast right here during the first half of the night. |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Interesting, thanks! Where did you get the data for that? Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| On the news this morning, China is having its worst winter in 50 years Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Resin I saw some pics a few days ago do you know if its
southern China that been affected or northan China
also how I wonder what the coldest temp has been. |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| A broad band of snow west across central China from about Shanghai: 
Looking through the archive, the snow has been lying there for over a week. The green in northeast China is of course also below freezing (note the sea ice in the Yellow Sea inlet), just dry. Resin |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| I do wonder how much of the China story is simply media hype over the worst snow for 50 years in some particular part of China, after all somewhere in that huge country has its worst winter for 50 years just about every year. And we don't often realise, but much of China has very cold winters every year, maybe without quite so much snow. And how much of the disruption is due to increasing industrialisation, with hundreds of millions of migrating workers running the infrastructure constantly at the limit, so relatively minor disruption has huge knock-on effects(like England!). And how much is down to increasing access of the world media to a country where twenty years ago 50 million people could have died in a snowstorm and we would never have heard. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Met Office historical climate data
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| I can't decide whether I would rather be stuck waiting for a train home in China, or upside-down in a tree in Arkansas after the tornadoes passed through. Maybe I shouldn't complain about the Manchester weather ;) |
RE: Milder winters or just a run of them
| | |
| Yikes! That's nasty! Shouldn't be tornadoes like that in February! |
|
|
|
|
