This March has been cold in the UK. Don’t know how they will be able to “repackage” as warmest ever… Maybe they won’t try this time… But sometimes you just look at something and say “That’s cold”…
UK Plot of temperatures in March over the years
Interactive DIY Met Office chart. You can change month and coverage area too.
Yes, it’s a blatant “cherry pick” in that other months are not as dramatic. But just look at that right hand edge. Now that’s just cold… The last time it was this cold was in about 1916. So can we say “It’s the coldest in 97 years? Hmmm?
Note, too, that it WAS this cold in 1916, so this is not “unprecedented” cold. Neither is it a “warming cold” or a Global Warming Chilling (or however they are trying to package the bald faced lie that Global Warming manifests as being colder…)
No, this is just your garden variety “Once in a 100 years miserably cold UK”.
My sympathies to all of you folks there, and I hope my relatives are staying warm.
No, I don’t feel guilty here in California. Last night it actually rained for about 1/2 inch worth. I’d left some things sitting out on the patio and had to go move them at about 4 A.M. I even got sprinkled on. And today, why, it was at least 2 pm before I could take my shirt off in the sun on the patio. We can have hardship here, too, you know… /sarc; And somewhere down in Australia there are some Sumner relatives also having escaped from the UK a generation back, no doubt also “coping” with sun and warmth.
But that is how the long cycles of weather work. Look at that chart and, even with the bad station siting and UHI and data adjusting and all; you can clearly see the 58-60 ish year cycle of things. And how about 1947, just after the last peak started to roll over, there was a sharp down year. But it warmed up a bit after that (though the averages continued to drift down). So with any luck, this is a ‘one off’ and next year will be warmer. Even if not quite as warm as the peak years.
So bundle up just a bit longer. Warmer times on on their way.
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=news;storyid=1417
To go along with the coldest March in 50 years, this Easter is now the coldest recorded since records began as Braemar fell away to -12.5c, beating the previous coldest of -9.8c in 1986.
Yes, they have an “April Fools Funny” in the article too, but the cold isn’t…
Frozen Easter Eggs? Not my idea of a proper Spring Festival at all.
Musings from the Chiefio 
No worries as it is soon to get less cold, frost has killed my bedding plants and yesterday it was snowing in London and yes we are jealous of your sunny climes. Well this is the joy of living here, the weather is always interesting and varied. Perhaps a barbeque summer?
Pauline, not all the colonies are enjoying the radiance and warmth of Mr. Sol. We had a sleet storm yesterday. Which was a record for the date as it had never sleeted on that day! They tell us that it will get warm (and spring like) soon. While this is Virginia, not Missouri, I am still tempted to tell them “Show me”.
@PhilJourdan:
Yes, due to the more “Loopy jet stream”, when California is warmer, everything East of the Rockies tends to have a Cold Canadian Express fall on it.
On the flip side, we often end with droughts then and various kinds of “do not use water” rules…
@Pauline:
My Mum returned home to near London one “summer” many years back (when last in the cold phase AMO / PDO). IIRC, it poured all day on July 4th… The joke then was “T’was a fine Summer, July 7th as I remember…. ” (or something like that…;-)
So thanks to our weather cycles here, I’ll likely get everything planted and growing well just in time to be told not to water it…
It’s the ocean stupid. ;<)
N’er cast a clout till May is out…
Clothes to walk the dogs this morning, in Nunney, Somerset
Fur-lined boots
T-shirt
Over Shirt
Over Over Shirt
Fleece
Balaclava topped with Woolly Hat
Scarf
Fleece Gloves
April IS the cruellest month, as Mr. Eliot opined.
@Tim Clark says: 5 April 2013 at 12:41 pm
It’s the ocean stupid. ;<)
=================================
Tha's 'effing cold as well :-)
I moved from NH/MA to NC to get away from the cold. The jet stream is coming from over the Gulf of Mexico right now so it should be nice and ‘warm’ but it is 45F (7C) @ 11:00 am. In 2010 (end of solar cycle 23) it reached 90F (32C) on this day with a min of 51F (11C). Yesterday also had a high of 45F (7C). (Grumble, I want my global warming, Phil, Mikey, Jimmy, Al you promised me global warming and I WANT IT NOW! sniff)
Gail, please. You are starting to sound like Baruca Salts. ;-)
EASY!: They will just change the Y axis scale.
@E.M. Frozen easter eggs?…. Last year, while observing from the air with IR cameras, it was detected that many of UK homes did not have any heating, due to the high taxes on fossil fuels there. One of the ways retirees have to warm themselves is taking buses all the way around, as they ride for free.
REPTILIANS DON¨T CARE AS THEY HAVE COLD BLOOD….
Germany also has record cold.
Yes, IT has been so warm here in northern California that I am tempted to set out the tomatoes and it is a month too early. Even with the storms we are getting cool rain, not normal cold snow! Looks like I will need to plan on canning fruit and making wine as the bloom has been successful so far and we may have a warm and damp growing season. I knew there was some reason my ancestors moved to California near 200 years ago. The eastern states are too damn cold. pg
We have record snow and col all over the NH. In the mean time volcanic activity ramping up. http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/smithsonianusgs-weekly-volcanic-activity-report-28-march-to-3-april-2012/ So do the inventory what made this winter so interesting. 1. Negative Arctic Oscilation and 2. a jet stream going as south as it gets with wildly North South meandering with it’s loops breaking up. Just have a look at the map of today, it’s a mess: http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream;sess= We have 3. a negative Atlantic Decadal Oscilation, 4. a negative Pacific,5. low solar and 6. lots of volcanic activity. The arrival of spring is forecasted for the end of next week but even today we had night frost, icy slude and day time temps just above zero degrees Celsius. With a steady decline of winter temps in Germany and Europe over the past years and the spectacular downwards jump down E.M has pointed out I would also like to make the remark that besides the short warm shot (jet stream) we had in January, this was an extremely long winter. The snowy mess here tarted early November and we still had folks skating over the past weekend. Last year early march I already had a sun tan. I will watch developments very closely and I really think we have interesting times ahead.
@R. de Haan:
Any frozen canal ice skating this winter?
A few years back the Warmers were all hyping about how it was never going to freeze enough for Dutch canal races again…
E.M, I love skating and I did take advantage of the conditions so I skated this winter, but also last winter, the winter before that and the winter before that. Now that’s an interesting development because we had periods of 5 up to 7 years without skating at all. We’re back to the good old times when even a Dutch winter was a real winter.
Yes, cold all right. And yet, this being 37 years (2 moon cycles) after 1976, we’re supposed to have a warm summer. God knows, we could do with it.
@Paul Hanlon:
Dearly hope you get a nice warm summer! Y’all deserve it!
@R. de Haan:
Have any link to news / stories about the “skate conditions”? Or do I need to go “Net Fishing”?
(Thinking of a posting about when they were saying “no more skates” vs now… Even a Dutch newspaper article about a local race on a name canal would make a decent ‘foil’…)
Just out of curiosity, what is the general mood towards government and all the CAGW/environmental nonsense over there in the EU now that the financial shoe has been dropped, ‘Glowbull Warming’ is turning the landscape white and everyone is freezing their tushes off?
Any change of mood or is everyone still diehard greenies?
I can remember snow in May in the late 70’s but Scotland doesn’t seem to exist for the MetOffice,just the south of England. No tomato’s for me this year i think: ( Lots of tatties instead.
A 60 year cycle is looking more and more likely.
April’s not got a lot warmer yet!
@cm “A 60 year cycle is looking more and more likely.”
Yes. That means that in only another 30 years the crazies will be dusting off the “global warming” meme and proclaiming that Hansen and Mann were unrecognized prophets.
@Adam – it broke for us this past Sunday. Now we are getting 80 degree days. From the 40s to the 80s. Must be Global Warming (it was just vacationing under the sea before this week).
Interesting looking at the highs for the first week of April in mid North Carolina @ a rural station. These are the averages
2013 – 61.3°F
2010 – 69.9°F
2011 – 73.7°F
2010 – 86.6°F
2009 – 71.4°F
2008 – 64.6°F
2007 – 70.0°F
2006 – 71.3°F
This is very much a cold spring. I am mentioning this because the first week in April is the ‘transition week’ from cold to warm in mid North Carolina Lat (~ 35.5° N) by the second week of April you are hitting the seventies and even eighties and nineties fairly regularly. April first was the first day to break seventy @ 73°F and the temperature has yet to break eighty with only three days over seventy.
I think the transition months, from summer to winter and from winter to summer are where you are going to see the first indications of what is actually happening since it is the shortening of summer insolation that causes snow accumulation.
Graph of Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover – October