Winters coming, what will it serve up ? UD 11 Dec

[stuart]

After a slightly ordinary summer but with a very welcome twist right at the end of September, I managed to get in a last BBQ actually in October, which is a first for me, we now turn our attentions to another winter forecast recently seen in the headlines as possibly worse than last years if you believe everything you read !

I’ve been following for 3-4 years now a long term forecaster who more recently, certainly this year, has been named more than once as a reference to some of these predictions.

His name is James Madden who some might of heard of now and having watched his long term forecasts for the last 3-4 years can actually say that it’s quite fascinating how much he seems to get right compared to some other forecasting organisations.

That’s not to say he’ll get it right again this year, (or will he ?), but if anyone’s interested in finding out how he does it and previous history of forecasting, here are a couple of links to his stuff:

www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

And to his own Blog:

globalcoolingnewiceageuk.blogspot.com/

He also posts on YouTube.


Latest update: 11th December

[martyn]

Well, it certainly has been cold and we have had snow. What is better than last year is that so many people have cleared their drive and in front of their house, well done. Any ideas how we could make it better?

[stuart]

Hi Martyn,

Well, I think that given our location within the UK, we don't always see the best (or worst) of winter in these parts so I guess it's a learning curve for us here down south ! But I agree that more people this year have been more prepared for the snow.

In certain parts of Europe it's law that you clear the surrounding area around your house of snow including the path outside your house, along with using winter tyres on your car. But they have more regular snow than we have here !

I suspect the Scots laugh at us when we get 4 inches and start to panic, but compared to certain parts of Europe this year, some had over 5m of lying snow, and especially that guy just recently who was found in his car in Sweden alive having spent two months surviving under snow. We got off very lightly I think.

As to how can we make it better: I think next time we should enjoy it and build the worlds largest snow man in the village hall grounds, we have hot soup and BBQ on tap and some decent music going whilst we do it, and a good ol fashioned snow ball fight at the end and a snow party to celebrate !