Penellype's Weather Channel

[bikermike]

It was keep-me-awake windy in Barnet last night...

[quanglewangle]

It was keep-me-awake windy in Barnet last night...

Down here, where the wind blows in from the Atlantic, if we let the the wind keep us awake we wouldn't get any sleep at at all. You know in the morning if it's been an especially windy night when everything is covered in a crunchy car-rotting layer of salt crystals.

[Penellype]

Very windy here too yesterday - the Met Office did eventually produce a yellow wind warning for parts of the north, but it was rather late appearing.

Thankfully things are still looking set to calm down, although it is likely to be windy at the weekend. What happens to temperatures and cloud amounts is still very dependent on the exact position of the high pressure, and this still keeps changing from run to run.

[quanglewangle]

⬆️ Notice you are in York, Penellype. When we lived there, old fellas would say, of the bone chilling east wind, that if you stand on the tower of York Minster and lopk east the next highest thing is the Ural mountains. Brrr..

[Penellype]

⬆️ Notice you are in York, Penellype. When we lived there, old fellas would say, of the bone chilling east wind, that if you stand on the tower of York Minster and lopk east the next highest thing is the Ural mountains. Brrr..

Yes, easterly winds can be very cold and we get most of our worst winter weather that way. We are to some degree protected from the westerlies by the pennines. Strangely the dividing line where snow finishes from either direction is often the A1.

[Gillykat]

Same here in Alnwick.....we're mostly protected from the worst of the westerly weather by the Cheviots. I was told the weather blows over. meets the hills and splits north to hit Berwick upon Tweed and south to hit Morpeth and tends to miss Alnwick altogether. There's certainly been a few times the moors just half a mile or so out of town (and up the hill as the town is in a dip) have had a few inches of snow but centre of town has the odd snowflake if we're lucky.

[Penellype]

Please be aware that although the weather is set to improve significantly over the next few days and may feel like spring has arrived if the sun comes out, there are distinct signs of a colder spell developing from around 20th March. If the current predictions are right this could be colder than we have seen this winter.

Infuriatingly I still can't post pictures , but the current thinking is that the high pressure moves to the west a bit, allowing the wind to turn into the north, then topples back over us dragging in a cold easterly wind. This is not a beast from the east, but the upper air would be between -5 and -10 for eastern areas, slightly less cold in the west. Several nights of significant frost can be expected, especially if skies are clear.

You have been warned!

[Chippy Minton]

Oh dear! And so starts the hardening off hokey kokey..........

[bikermike]

Frost this morning in Barnet, I wasn't expecting that. Good job my potatoes have already gone in.

[Penellype]

Frost this morning in Barnet, I wasn't expecting that. Good job my potatoes have already gone in.

The temperatures are up and down like a yo-yo at the moment which makes things difficult. Some very mild (but probably rather cloudy) weather on the way, but a sharp change to colder conditions Wed-Thurs. How long it lasts is open to question, and when it does warm up it looks possible that it may cool down again, possibly fairly quickly:

[Gillykat]

Saw a newspaper headline this morning online saying we're in for a hot Easter....possibly the hottest since records began I just thought yeah, yeah blah blah blah it's a month away!!!! How can you possibly know

Nice 11c here in Alnwick today with a bit of a stiff breeze.

[Penellype]

Saw a newspaper headline this morning online saying we're in for a hot Easter....possibly the hottest since records began I just thought yeah, yeah blah blah blah it's a month away!!!! How can you possibly know

Nice 11c here in Alnwick today with a bit of a stiff breeze.

Always take newspaper headlines like this with a huge dose of salt. Forecasting beyond 5 days is always full of uncertainty and Easter is nearly a month away. This time of year can have huge differences in temperature depending on wind direction and air mass and as I keep saying, the position of any high pressure is crucial.

Currently we are having a sudden stratospheric warming, which will at least curb the enthusiasm of this winter's highly active polar vortex and should weaken the jet stream. If it also leads to high pressure over Scandinavia or Greenland (fairly likely but by no means certain) we could be in for a cold Easter.

[Penellype]

Reminder that behind today's rain band is colder air. My local forecast (based on the GFS model) shows minimum temperatures no higher than 2 for 9 of the next 10 nights, with 0 or -1 on 6 of them. My experience of the GFS is that it is poor at predicting minium temperatures and you can add an error margin of +/- 2 even for the coming night. This is not a good time to start hardening off tender plants!

[Penellype]

Today is the equinox, so for the next 6 months the days are longer than the nights. As if to mark the occasion, I saw the first butterfly of the year today, I think a peacock, but it could have been a small tortoiseshell (I wasn't close enough to be certain).

[quanglewangle]

Unusual near gale from southeast

It's s very unusual for us to get strong winds from southeast here in west Cornwall.