The mumsnet annual winter weather watch thread

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

It's slightly mad to start a thread before we've even hit October, but I know that many are quite anxious about the prospects of cold weather this winter, so I'll start it early.

The usual caveats apply : I'm not a professional forecaster. I often get things wrong! Please don't make decisions on what I say - especially ones that have safety or financial implications.

This far out all we can talk about is the balance of probabilities, we can't make predictions. And as we know with probability, the improbable happens!

At some point this thread will start to get confusing as everyone gets excited about christmas weather. I'll start a separate, specific christmas thread about five weeks before Christmas.

oh your poor Mum Rainbow feel free to dm me if she ever needs some reassurance about the forecast. Tonight shouldn't be too awful for her, gusts to 60/70 mph.

Ice and some snow are potentially an issue north of Perth overnight.

Thanks Kitten, I may do that. Stay safe everyone!

It was noisy last night. Roary noise. Different to normal windy weather. It's not that windy here so maybe something about the direction or new buildings changed ?

The tabloids seem to be getting excited about 'Arctic Weather' near Valentines Day. Anything doing @OhYouBadBadKitten ?

I wouldn't get excited Tokyo. I'm not quite sure what they are on.

Might be a bit of snow this Thursday across parts of Wales and the Midlands.

I'm most disappointed by the winter so far. A few brief spells of cold weather/day or so of snow for us here (Leicester) and that's been it. And I saw my first bumblebee of the year yesterday so I hope they're not going to be in for a shock if we get a cold snap.

Agree @GloriaSmud A rubbish summer followed by a rubbish winter! We're off to Italy skiing in a few weeks, I shall post snow pictures when I get back, I think that's about as close as we're going to get to it!

We need to keep an eye on next Thursday/Friday. Models are coming up with various scenarios , some of which have pretty strong winds and snow through northern England or thereabouts.

Oooooh

This is one of the more extreme solutions for Friday. Those are wind gusts in mph.

In the mean time, wind warnings for Weds/Thursday out in force for the north.
www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2022-02-16

We do have a very wild week coming up.
Wednesday into Thursday we have gusts 60-70 mph even inland from northern England upwards, higher over exposed coasts.

Friday shows huge uncertainty at the moment with a wide range of solutions in models for wind speed, location of highest winds and any snow. You may see some alarmist headlines and I'm not going to join in in those. We simply don't know yet. Keep an eye on the forecast.

Thanks @OhYouBadBadKitten I do love a wild week!

Oh I see the Met Office have just named them?, Storm Dudley on Wednesday and Storm Eunice on Friday

Question mark not supposed to be there! 🙄

Grumble, grumble, we are in the south west and we have a leak in our roof that only ever turns up when there are high winds from a certain direction /and/ heavy rain.
Guess which direction those gales are coming out of?
Grrrrr!

Updated weather warnings, including amber for Dudley and Yellow for Eunice.

It seems very likely to me that Eunice will end up as an amber warning too, but until more is known about the path and intensity the Met office will keep it as a Yellow. If you look at the impact matrices for both storms, the Met Office are modelling Eunice as more severe than Dudley.

I'll start two separate threads for them now.

Dudley is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weather/4481213-Storm-Dudley

And this is Eunice. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weather/4481220-Storm-Eunice

www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2022-02-19
Warnings through until Monday.
Tomorrow will see more trees down weakened by today's storm. Take care out and about in the south.

Updated weather warnings. www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings for wind and rain. Gusts possible to 70mph at times especially in the NW and northern Wales along the coast, but more generally 50-60mph. Read the met office warnings for details.

It is likely that trees and perhaps some weakened structures will come down unfortunately and will hamper remaining efforts to restore power and clear the road and rail infrastructure.

Two concerns over the next couple of days

1. Generally strong winds today 40mph or so, with the potential for a nasty squall line developing and travelling rapidly down the country from mid afternoon to early mid evening.

2. Tomorrow's low pressure with inland gusts 50-60mph.

Sorry that's short, I'm heading out today and just seen the time.

What determines the warning level? What we're having now seems worse (for us) than Eunice, as the wind speed is higher (gusts between 50-70 mph) lasting for a sustained period of 36 or so hours (Eunice built up over the day with only a relatively short period of 50mph+ gusts overall). We were amber for Eunice but this is yellow.

The wind isn't set to drop until about 4pm tomorrow! I'll be a nervous wreck by then!

We are currently under a yellow warning in the NW - but local news reports are saying there is the potential for it to be upgraded to amber.

Currently blustery and wet.

We have a brief dry spell, apparently. Then back to raining. The wind isn't letting up, however. (Also NW, on the coast.)