Anyone else hear it's going to be the worst winter ?

Sooooooooo, get ready for it now;) Buy in rock salt and grit, lag your pipes, stock up your car with blankets, grit, a shovel, some energy bars etc, put winter tyres on, blah blah blah, and then you'll be ready. No worries.

Oh, and -20 isn't that bad as long as you cover the extremeties. :D

It's winter in .......... fill in appropriately

And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 52 below!
Oh, how I love .............
When the snow's up to your butt.
You take a breath of winter air
And your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,
I guess I'll hang around.
I could never leave ...........
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground.

:D:D:D
 
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well I hope not too - although I agree my friend has two huskys, both have recently been eating double their normal amounts and growing huuuggeeee coats! last time they did that was afew months the big freeze/snow 2010 :eek:

lets hope theyre confused!!
 
Given that they can't even get the weather right for less than a week ahead i take it with a pinch of salt! Every year is supposedly gonna be the worst winter ever. Weren't we supposed to get an Indian summer after this years awful summer too?! ;)
 
Every year they say we are in for a 'bad' winter......I want to know when we had a 'good' winter! TBH they all feel the same to me...cold, dark, wet & EXPENSIVE!
 
fine by me. I like snow and would rather it frozen than wet and mudfesty :)


*hums, I'm dreaaamin' of a whiiite Christmas*
 
I want snow! Or at least some heavy frosts to get rid if the mud.

My ponies resemble mammoths. Except the 3 year old. She has next to no coat though it is her first winter being rugged and she needs pretty heavy rugs to keep warm.
 
tallyho! said:
Well, that's nothing! Here's a story topping story!

We had to fill our water troughs from the stream. A line of four of us, big buckets between us, and a small bucket for the end arms... Across the farm to fill three troughs and the ones in the cowsheds.

So there!
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Well I can beat that!! We were without water for 8 days all over Christmas 2010 because of the T*ts in the valley that kept their taps running to stop them freezing and stopped the water coming to us up the hill. We had no water for washing, flushing loos, washing up, or for the 12 horses, 40 sheep and 20 cows ...

On Christmas Day OH went to frozen troughs around the farm and axed chunks of ice out which we then had melting in any container we could find, and our xmas dinner was served out of saucepans because we didn't have water for washing serving dishes. We have some lovely photos of that day :rolleyes:

I really really hope we don't have another winter like that. It was -18 degrees for several nights in a row. I think I might cry :(
 
I sincerely hope it does get to -20 and then that it stays there until spring miraculously appears. I'd take frozen and snow over mud any day!!

Snow cleans my rugs when my horses roll and cleans my horses legs so I don't have to wash them. It gives me a genuine reason not to worry about riding. Bring it on I say :D
 
Work have been finalising their action plan for if we have a proper winter. When I pointed out that even with their plans, I won't be able to get into work, the response was 'that's okay, we'll hire a discovery and come and get you'

Urm, no, you don't understand - when the tractors and farmers defenders can't get through, a poncey city-type account manager is not going to get to me in a disco :D

Bring it on I say. Not going to be much worse than 2010!!

As for the Daily Fail article today, that was a clever bit of truth stretching scare-mongering. Although MetCheck were wrong when they said the Daily Fail would say the wind is from Siberia... :D
 
Have done my best to prepare after reading posts on here about being ready for winter - would like some brighter afternoons, the current grey dark ones mean had to put hens/geese away early in case of foxes so ponies expect feed at same time!

Bought a snow shovel last year, then did not get much snow, but on the little we had was really good - they seem to be on sale everywhere I go this year.

Only thing not yet done is to understand how the low ratio 4 wheeldrive works on new second hand 4x4 which is more complicated than old one which you just moved a lever and low it was in!
 
maisiemoo said:
keep hearing it mentioned from various sources, lots of snow which will be laying on the ground for about a month , record breaking winds and low temperatures , might get some extra shavings in !
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They said that last year!! It was going to be much worse than the previous winter when we did have snow. Last year we were supposedly going to have snow all winter.
Mind you I think we are in for a wet winter.
 
jesstickle said:
I sincerely hope it does get to -20 and then that it stays there until spring miraculously appears. I'd take frozen and snow over mud any day!!

Snow cleans my rugs when my horses roll and cleans my horses legs so I don't have to wash them. It gives me a genuine reason not to worry about riding. Bring it on I say :D
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You say this but I am old enough to recall winter of 62/63 when blizzards hit the UK and then froze for several months. Temperatures were sub zero day and night.
That winter, the snow started on Boxing Day 1962 and the big freeze lasted until March 1963.

Quote:-
Blizzards caused snowdrifts up to six metres deep, telephone lines were brought down and temperatures fell so low the sea froze over.

Roads faced similar disruption in 1963, but former policeman Tom Taylor, 68, from Gloucester, said the biggest problem was not a lack of grit - but a relentless, blustering wind.

"It was an unbelievable winter - I used to go out on the beat and on snow patrol in the Cotswolds, sometimes in a Land Rover recovery vehicle, and find people stuck in snowdrifts.

"Most of the country roads were impassable - the wind was horrendous. A snow plough would go down a road, but the wind kept blowing snow back on to the road and it would refill within hours - this went on week after week," he said.

"It was bitterly cold - I used to wear my pyjamas under my police uniform," he said.
There were hardly any motorways - the M1 had only opened in 1959.

But Prof Cook said parts of the sea - and the whole canal system - froze at a time when canals were still being used to transport goods.

He recalled one train having to be "dug out of the snow".

At Coaley Junction in Gloucestershire, the mail train froze and a fire had to be lit underneath it to defrost parts of the engine.

End quote

We dragged sledges laden with cast iron churns of water for 1.5 miles, most of it up steep hills to give to the ponies and then walked on to the stables only to drag bales of hay back out to the fields.

It was the only time my mother ever let me skive school, partly because of the animas and partly because most of the kids couldn't get to school anyway!

There were no JCBs to clear the roads, or very few of them, cars remained under drifts of months.

None of the horses or ponies had rugs on. They had icicles hanging from their whiskers and an ice blanket over their backs yet all were happy and fat as butter and never seen shivering.

Many times I have walked over 7 miles in deep snow to go feed the animals for several days. Now, get a foot of snow, and everyone panics and moans that they cannot drive anywhere.
I too am sick of the mess this rain has caused - I am lucky in that although the fields are sodden they are not under water, nor have we been flooded out.
I am not made of sugar and do not melt in the rain so the horses still get ridden! This in a severe frost would have to stop.

Something in my bones says that we are in for a bad winter. Whether I am right or not is another matter! Just that a couple of times I have thought it would be so.

Mind you, any stock prefers cold weather to constant rain. They deal with cold far better than constant wet.
 
I think I'm probably lucky foxhunter because I'm a Norfolk girl. Very little in the way of snow ever comes here (driest part of the UK) and we have no hills :D

If I lived someone else I might have a slightly different idea on snow!
 
jesstickle said:
I think I'm probably lucky foxhunter because I'm a Norfolk girl. Very little in the way of snow ever comes here (driest part of the UK) and we have no hills :D

If I lived someone else I might have a slightly different idea on snow!
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I remember when my brother was born and it was probably one of the last proper winters (1985) and mum went into labour, dad went to de-ice the car. He opened the front door and it was a wall of 6 foot snow :eek:

The east coast had a foot of snow in 2006/7 as well...at Easter :rolleyes:

But yes, so far, we have missed out on the white stuff :p

So far.
 
Our YO got the right *rse last year when we started bringing water up to the yard for our horses because she didn't get the pipes lagged like she promised and sort out an alternative water source. Mind you, it got her to get a big water bowser that is still at the yard, so we should be OK.

Hope its not like three years ago, when I had the worst experience ever driving home in blizzards - it took me 5 hours to get from Windsor to Ascot, and then in the end I had to abandon the car in a layby and walk 5 miles home in 6 inches of snow - I looked like a yeti when I got home at around midnight! I have never been so scared driving a car in my life. The 4x4 is ordered for December, so should be OK!
 
It won't be a bad winter. In 2010 oh and I managed to drive round tiny lanes in the peak district in an ancient vw polo, in fact we got further up the snake pass than any 4x4! So now we have a big 4x4 there will be no bad weather, it will be mild and damp just to spite us.........
 
Like a good scout always be prepared, my only worry is the water, I can carry feedbags over my hill on my shoulder(should start thinking about training horse to carry bags on their backs):D:D:D
 
I have to admit I'm a complete weather nut! For the last few months I've been really interested in meteorology and started studying it. I can now read the raw data from the computer models and pick up 'trends' in the later runs. Really fascinating stuff and find it much more reliable than the bog standard weather forecast. Also, understanding stratosphere temperature and how it affects our weather.

As you can tell I have no life :p

Don't listen to forecasters in the names of James Madden and Piers Corbyn, they forecast a cold and snowy winter every year!
Well anyway, the polar vortex is completely unstable and disorientated at the moment and it doesn't seem to be reforming any time soon which means there's a greater chance of high latitude blocking. If this happens then Arctic air is pumped down to us. Which is happening right this minute! Currently there's high pressure to the south of Greenland which is why the temperature has dropped massively lately. Keeping an eye on the north and east, you may have some snow next week! Good news is, is that the blocking is being broken down where we may get a little milder but wet, then the trends are going towards another block. Not only that but there could be a sudden stratosphere warming which can turn our weather particularly cold. Interesting times ahead. Doesn't help I'm like a fat kid in a cake shop when snow's involved :D

If any of that makes sense :p
 
I would love frost (not snow though!) but I really don't think we'll get much at all, and certainly not ridiculously low temps either. There weren't many berries, which is normally a good indicator. My guess is we'll have a few weeks of on/off -1 at night, 3/4 in the day and then back to warmer days with rain :( Much rather have hard frosts = no mud!
 
Izzwall said:
I have to admit I'm a complete weather nut! For the last few months I've been really interested in meteorology and started studying it. I can now read the raw data from the computer models and pick up 'trends' in the later runs. Really fascinating stuff and find it much more reliable than the bog standard weather forecast. Also, understanding stratosphere temperature and how it affects our weather.

As you can tell I have no life :p

Don't listen to forecasters in the names of James Madden and Piers Corbyn, they forecast a cold and snowy winter every year!
Well anyway, the polar vortex is completely unstable and disorientated at the moment and it doesn't seem to be reforming any time soon which means there's a greater chance of high latitude blocking. If this happens then Arctic air is pumped down to us. Which is happening right this minute! Currently there's high pressure to the south of Greenland which is why the temperature has dropped massively lately. Keeping an eye on the north and east, you may have some snow next week! Good news is, is that the blocking is being broken down where we may get a little milder but wet, then the trends are going towards another block. Not only that but there could be a sudden stratosphere warming which can turn our weather particularly cold. Interesting times ahead. Doesn't help I'm like a fat kid in a cake shop when snow's involved :D

If any of that makes sense :p
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I love this post!

Are there any websites you'd recommend to someone to gently ease them into learning this sort of thing?
 
We have a snow forecast for Friday. Yes, that's this Friday :D

Can only be an improvement on the mud, IMO. Snow is fun :o

Christmas Day, 2010...
Christmas2011.jpg
 
I have to say, if any of this is true about it being a terrible winter, I am 100% glad I have plane tickets booked to Oz in mid Jan!!

The horse I currently ride has grown a pretty good coat for a TB, and then had it clipped, and then grew it again, then had it clipped, and now it's grown again! He's surprisingly fuzzy.
 
I'm going to go against the grain and say I'd rather have milder, wet weather - it's so cold here tonight that the roads heading to the yard are like ice rinks as the standing water from all the rain we've had has frozen - my 4x4 with new tyres went up the hill sideways! This means no trailering out and limited hacking!

The arena has a crust on it already and some of the taps were frozen - bring back the mild, wet weather please!
 
It'll be fine, prefer snow and ice over mud and rain! You can at least put layers on and keep warm when its just sonw and ice, whereas if its cold and wet it all soaks through and you are cold and wet too, horrible :mad:
Mind you, if the world ends on the 21st December at least i will have a great time at Olympia the day before so its all good :D
 
JenJ said:
I love this post!

Are there any websites you'd recommend to someone to gently ease them into learning this sort of thing?
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http://forum.netweather.tv/forum/146-forecasting-model-discussion/
This place is what eased me in, also have a gander through netweather's other forums, very interesting reading and really shows that our planet is definitely changing

Also, if your feeling confident you can look at the models themselves here : http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php

ECM is quite a reliable model and so is the UKMO. Don't take any run from the models 3 days a head seriously, the many different weather systems, shortwaves etc around us can change within a day so makes forecasting difficult.
 
Bring on the cold I say. I'm sick of rain, so are the horses, & some good frosts are exactly what the fields need. And we love snow too!
 
Izzwall that is really interesting! Might also have a look at gentle intros for baby brain mums!!

FWIW my three boys all have massive bear suits on. They grew quite thick but the last week or so have really puffed out, makes them look chubby but then you stroke them and lose your hand!!

Million dollar I know what you mean about berries, I was always told that but they used that as the indicator last year-more berries than ever last year and then not too severe.
 
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