Mike Ronanye writes:
Photo from Sky News
Story from UK Telegraph:
UK brought to standstill as five inches of snow falls in an hour
The press still can’t convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit.
The lowest weekend temperature was reported in rural Oxfordshire, where it sank to -21F (-6 C) overnight on Saturday. With gritters and snow ploughs out in force, most major roads remained open, although the going was slow on minor roads and police received a high volume of calls reporting minor accidents.
Assuming that -6C was the actual temperature, +21F was the correct conversion not -21F.
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“The weather conditions were Arctic”
So -6C is “Arctic” these days? Aren’t they taking this whole Global Warming thing a little far?
Crosspatch, these guys live at the other end of the gulf stream. For them, zero is frightening. Hehehe, global warming has some answering to do. I remember snow as a kid in England.
Same goes for the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Swiss, Austria, parts of Italy, parts of Spain and a great part of France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Batlic States, Eastern Europe, great parts of Russia, Turkey and former Yugoslavia.
Crosspatch, it’s not Arctic but it certainly is not global warming. Call it an early sniff of winter?
Plus, Sweden, Finland and part of Russia were hit pretty hard as well. The latest snow cover map has a good portion of Europe east of France snow covered now.
A bit of a shock I’m sure after their mild and generally snow free winter last year.
As Robert says temperatures below zero is frightening in England (Scots are a bit hardier though).
Any snow brings utter disruption to the transport network and most schools will close due to “health and safety fears” (as well as teachers / kids not being able to get into school).
-6 in November in one of the southern counties is pretty much unheard of – and anything colder than about 3, especially if it is windy, would be described as arctic in most of the UK.
Looks like they can’t convert cm. to in. either. The 14 cm is right, the five should become 2.0″. Sigh.
Downright Dickensonian. Now all we need are some kids walking around in tattered clothing …
Okay, I am wondering why everyone is calling this “snow”. This word has been officially removed from civil discourse by the UN. The new accepted word for this, uh, unusual condition is “bad weather”. Also don’t forget that the accepted word for “cold” is now “slightly crisp”. Before you write any posts or comments please go to wwwdotUNdotcom and click on “Politically Correct Language”, then “Proper Weather Terms”. Failure to comply will have consequences.
Thank You
Every year it’s the same. Less than an inch of snow can bring the whole of the UK to a halt. I think it’s nothing to do with the snow myself. It’s just the rigid, miserable ‘box ticking’ work culture over there that makes people look for any excuse to take the day off.
Over here on Vancouver Island, unless your road is blocked by fallen trees it’s not really a ‘snow day’.
so what will hansen do? will all the temp records come through from europe with 6 days missing which will need to be interpolated
nov 22, nov 23 nov 24 nov 25 nov 26 suddenly missing?
It’s not just ºC/ºF conversion the title says 5″/hr whereas it was 5cm/hr. Also the 5.5″ of snowfall was in Aberdeen at ~58ºN, about as far North as Churchill, Manitoba! In the south the snow didn’t last long, being washed away by rain the next day. In the 70s when I lived in Yorkshire I recall snowfalls of this magnitude in mid November.
Snow in England in November may not be all that unusual, but this weather certainly is:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/Weather/2008/11/23/Snow-falls-a-week-before/1227440711.html
I think the word is Dickensian 😉
Off topic, but important news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/world/europe/25klaus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic is about to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union in January.
“He has blamed what he calls the misguided fight against global warming for contributing to the international financial crisis, branded Al Gore an “apostle of arrogance” for his role in that fight, and accused the European Union of acting like a Communist state.”
Go Vaclav!!
A plea from we in the UK who are bound to be snowed in this year.
Please can U send us beknighted miserable wretches sum food parcels mister. It’s gonna be WW2 orl ofer again over ‘ere missus. We is in terrible trouble wif our repayments. Would U like to buy the Tower of Lunnen sir? S’not expensive. £21 billion is a right good bargain!
Tower Bridge is an’ver item 4 sail, if U is interested. £1 billion to U toffs in kanadia. I fink that’ ‘ow u spells it.
Pleeze ‘elp the muvverland. U knows we deserves it. We is good wiv munny.
Eastern Australia had widespread snow at the same time, only a few days before the official start of summer.
Meanwhile here in Western Australia we are having an unseasonably cold November. Only 2 days so far this November have reached our average max of 26.4C and then only just. This year’s (with 5 days to go) average is 3C below the long term average average. The interior is even colder.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW6111.latest.shtml
BTW, the reason is the weather has been unusually cloudy. Clouds always equal cold weather in Australia.
Scotland manages to cope well with snow and normally when it snows up there it does not meet the headlines, but you get a bit of snow in England and the press goes into overdrive with it splashed all about. No wonder the Scots laugh at us 🙁 .
2 years ago we had about 1cm in Kent and they started selling snow shovels at the local DIY superstore. I bought one as they are handy for getting up leaves.
As a person who regularily spends nights out in the shed I can assure you that for the last 2 winters they have been milder than the one or 2 before. Even so we are only talking down to -5C in cold winters and -1C or so in the warmer ones, not really a talking point when you consider Canada or Russia. Our prevailing maritime winds tend to soften the weather and it is only when we get direct polar wind from NW to NE that we have a cold snap. We had one a few weeks ago and we have one now.
Looking at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/se/biggin_hill_forecast_weather.html
you do have to worry why the Brits like to complain about the weather when we have some of the best in the world all told, not too dry, not too hot, not too cold, not too wet…..
Regards
Andy
Ric Werme wrote:
< Looks like they can’t convert cm. to in. either. The 14 cm is
< right, the five should become 2.0″. Sigh.
No, those 5.5 inches are correct.
1 inch = 2.54 cm, whence 14 cm = 14/2.54 = 5.5 inches.
By the way, I didn’t heard one word about “global warming” on the Belgian television the last three days. 🙂
An amusing comment spotted among the reader’s replies on a recent BBC article on ‘the bad weather’.
I really don’t know how I’m going to cope. It says two whole days of cold weather! I’m worried sick!
I’m not sure if I need to have my winter coat and boots in readiness, or maybe even get my sledge out from the shed: does anyone know if I’m likely to need it this time?
Should I buy in extra food in case we’re snowed in? Ought I to invest in anti-freeze for the car, or is it be too late? Maybe I should put the central heating on.
I don’t know what to do!
Rachel R, United Kingdom
Now, there’s a lass with a fine sense of humour.
Some norwegian glaciers are growing again
The following link is in norwegian (You can do a google translate, but the result is far from perfect)
The last sentence puts things into perspective: “Hallgeir Elvehøy says Briksdalsbreen was very small in 1950 – and 1960s. But he believes that this glacier now hardly have been so low since the Viking era, or before “the little ice age”, that is, before 1350″.
i.e. the glaciers were small also during the Viking era 1000 years ago, so today’s situation is not unprecedented.
Sorry, that link was lost, trying again
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/1.6322673
The UK snow was far from widespread. We didn’t see any in in the midlands and the SW had temps around 10 deg C.
The CET record shows November 2008 (up to 24th) +1.2 deg C above normal and 2008, as a whole, +0.7 deg C above normal. We’re still some way off the next LIA.
Philip B.
BTW, the reason is the weather has been unusually cloudy. Clouds always equal cold weather in Australia.
Very true but overnight cloud cover keeps the
heatwarmth in. This was noticed earlier this year (Jan/Feb (?)) when the alarmists stated that the temps were a record high, not during the day though.Norm on the East Coast (Aus)
The story is simply wrong to claim the UK was brought to a standstill.
Some parts of the UK had snow, mostly near the east coast and in Scotland. MOST places did not have any significant snow.
I live high up on Dartmoor in the SW of England. So far this Autumn I think I’ve possibly seen a few wet snowflakes in some cold rain in October, and we’ve had a whopping one frost. Yet I can remember Autumns from the past that featured many frosts and quite a bit of snow – some not all that long ago. This IS NOT the really cold Autumn recent stories posted on WUWT might make readers think and stories about snow in a few places will not alter that simple reality, in fact temperatures have been around normal so far this Autumn.
But, the British do, these days, seem to be absolutely terrified of a even a covering of snow. What a real winter like the ones we got in the past would do to us I shudder to think.
Interesting that in the same newspaper only about a month ago, it was predicted by a so called expert that “because of increasingly mild winters”, trees are dropping their leaves later and later and he then predicted that the likelihood was a green Christmas as opposed to a white one !
Don’t know where this “expert” is now, but from where I am in the New Forest in the south of England, it’s cold and all the trees I can see out of my window are either bare or have leaves of the most beautiful russets and gold !