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.

We've got quite a swing coming, with wetter mild windy weather coming next week for a time, especially in the midlands and south, where night time temperatures could be 16-18c. Then a swing back to cold nights.

At the moment the models are hinting at a cold end for Oct.

My mum's gardener is usually pretty good at predicting weather trends & he has forecasted a very hard winter, he says the trends are very much like 2010. I really hope he is wrong, we were snowed in for 3 weeks solid that year.

It's interesting he was saying that Nat, in many ways I think he's right. Except that there are meteorologists saying that such an unusually early weakening of the polar vortex could lead to it really strengthening by January. If that turned out to be the case, we could end up with a very front loaded winter. ie. Cold and possibly snow to start, but then mild, wet and windy for the second half.

It's been madly warm in devon today.. I even had my jumper off outside at one point!

Oh hello!! How have I missed my absolute most favorite thread of the year?!

Thanks so much @Ohyoubadbadkitten hope you're ok! Another one very much wishing for snow!

Was 2010 the year of the really bad snow, in December? That was a weird time, it felt like it never stopped snowing!

We’ve had one day of really cold temps in the morning, where I of course had not dressed for the occasion 🙈

It was ListenLinda. People got stuck in shopping centres overnight.

Hi Tokyo

@OhYouBadBadKitten i thought I remembered right, wasn’t sure if I had confused it with the BfrE in 2018!

I was early pregnant with ds1 in January 2010 and we got snowed in at home in the village. That was the winter we had a foot of snow fall overnight which is a rarity in S. Kent. The following December with ds then 3 months old, our fridge freezer broke down. We went to order a new one but no delivery lorries could get down into Kent and Curry's couldn't fulfill orders so we got one from display at our local independent place. While we waited we put all the fridge food outside in the snow and it kept just fine for days.

I think both 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 were the worst I've known since the 80s. I'm pretty sure 2009/2010 temps didn't break above 0° for many days at a time.

It was a pretty remarkable winter!

Some rather warm temperatures in the south for the first half of the week, pretty warm and unsettled right across the UK, but a big change coming by Thursday/Friday. Rather colder. Perhaps some snow showers over Scottish hills on Thursday. It doesn't look like prolonged cold at this point though. Just a few days.

It looks like the polar vortex is imminently weakening.

So warm here today in the SW. Damp, windy and warm - yuck. Heavy rain now set in with the possibility of thunderstorms tomorrow.

It's been an odd day hasn't it! Felt almost tropical with the heat and windy wet.

www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2021-10-20 thunderstorm warnings.

Hello, I've just come across this thread while browsing the boards. May I join please?
It's flooding we worry about where i come from in the Midlands.

Pascha, yes, those two winters were the worst for years. We're in Scotland and in 2009/10 we had snow from early December through to about 10 January. It snowed really heavily in mid December then the skies cleared, temperatures plummeted and the deep snow lasted for weeks - daytime temperatures rarely getting above minus 10.

Christmas was 'saved' by DH and I putting the Christmas Dinner in my deeply unfashionable wheelie shopping trolley and hauling it 2 miles up the hill to DParents house!

It was a winter of frozen pipes and everywhere being like a skating rink. I remember noticing how many people had limbs in plaster once we were out and about again after the thaw.......

Of course Boosey's! Feel free to jump in. Flooding in many ways is the worst of peoples fears. It is so horrible and difficult to defend against. Have you signed up to the environment agency's flood warnings? www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings

I'd forgotten about the frozen pipes. So many burst water mains and water shortages as a result.

Watch out today for thunderstorms across England - they could become organised today, with the risk of lightning, very high winds and perhaps a tornado or two. Currently I think that East Anglia is at greatest risk. I'll try and update through the day if I see any squall lines forming, but I've a crazy busy day with work.

Just came looking for this thread.
Been outside half an hour, it's positively balmy here today!
For mid October it's far too pleasant we have hardly used any coal and only a bit of wood it's a bit worrying as we also suffer (indirectly, thankfully) flooding and it feels like it'll be a wet winter again.

fucking big fuck off thunderstorm with cloud to ground lightening and bloody loud thunder. and hail, and fucking thunderm and rain... did I mention the fucking thunder?

Where is that Susan?

Blackeyed - i'm going to send you a quick pm.

Just read today's messages. 10yo Ds1 is on residential in East anglia 😱. I do hope they haven't been drowneded kayaking on the lake...

Looks like there may have been a tornado in Widnes.

Some light snow in braemar this evening. In the meantime
www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2021-10-20 amber warnings for rain and there is still the chance for thunderstorms and the possibility of more tornadoes.

Thank you so much for this, OYBBK