Long range weather forecast from 22 Dec onwards - serious blizzards

[Tallante]

I use metcheck a lot and I have noticed that it's long range forecasts are hopelessly pessimistic come Summer or Winter. It must be a feature of the computer model that they use.

My advice is, don't panic. I suspect you will find it looks a lot better in the morning.

 

[marmalade76]

Everybody with horses should be taking appropriate action, especially if there is a risk you/they are snowed in and you cannot reach them.

Try this for Gloucester area and it's the same for the whole country

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/14days.asp?zipcode=gloucester

Years ago the forecasting was not as good as it is now, so take advantage of the information and take precautions.

Don't sit there and hope it will not be as bad as it might be.

Does this mean you are in the Gloucester area JM?

 

[Simsar]

No he is far to clever to let us think that.

 

[marmalade76]

No he is far to clever to let us think that.

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

Do NOT believe metcheck for longer than the 2 day forecast.

It often has stupid winds/temps/weather for the over 7 days bit.

 

[Judgemental]

No he is far to clever to let us think that.

Sadly, no not in Gloucestershire.

I used that great county and all it's wonderful hunting atributes, simply as random fond memory of a day out with the Beaufort and they met at Worcester Lodge came to mind.

Foxy grin too - you too are becoming cunning, Simsar

 

[Doormouse]

I can cope with the weather but how are the hunts going to cope?

Our hunt is already feeling the financial affects of just being off for the last 2 weeks, and as with a lot of smaller farming packs, run on a shoestring. This could be the end for ours.

Please let the forecast be wrong......

That is so true, I should think that many packs will be having financial problems if this continues.

Any hunt fund raisers should be supported if at all possible and as JM says don't forget the hunt servants at Christmas, their work doesn't stop because we aren't hunting, in fact it is often harder work in kennels with this weather.

 

[pastie2]

Any forcasters that predict winds up to 345mph - 400mph like Metcheck do on a regular basis, I tend to ignore.

 

[steadyeddy]

Definately going into hibernation!! Is very worrying for all.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

it's extremely difficult (and unlikely to be very accurate)to predict the weather in the UK more than a week or so in advance usually (smaller landmass, makes it more unpredictable than say, the USA).
This last freeze was predicted a couple of weeks in advance though-it was in every paper from the Sun to the Scotsman. the Metoffice says (for my area) that we are due for colder than average temps and higher precipitation than usual-so I'll make sure I have fuel, hay, feed, containers for water as I did this time. most of the time I find Metcheck reasonably accurate locally in the short-term but tend to cross reference with the metoffice, BBC and acuweather.

 

[Judgemental]

it's extremely difficult (and unlikely to be very accurate)to predict the weather in the UK more than a week or so in advance usually (smaller landmass, makes it more unpredictable than say, the USA).
This last freeze was predicted a couple of weeks in advance though-it was in every paper from the Sun to the Scotsman. the Metoffice says (for my area) that we are due for colder than average temps and higher precipitation than usual-so I'll make sure I have fuel, hay, feed, containers for water as I did this time. most of the time I find Metcheck reasonably accurate locally in the short-term but tend to cross reference with the metoffice, BBC and acuweather.

It certainly alerts folk and that can never be a bad thing.

 

[flowerlady]

I am the first to be sceptical of Metcheck.

However all the old timers, those who remember the 30's 1947 and 1963 in particular, are saying the weather pattern this winter is exactly the same.

QUOTE]

WOW can you remember 1947 and I thought I was getting on a bit

 

[Orangehorse]

The big snow/freeze in 1947 was at the end of January, but it lasted for weeks and the temperatures were very low. I know this as my Mother said she was talking to a neighbour in the garden and she said it looks like snow, but at this time of year it shouldn't be much. Famous last words! My mother died at 92 4 years ago.

I don't know what the rest of the winter was, obviously.

I am going to make sure I have lots of supplies in anyway, feed for horses and feed for humans as well.
Just hope the weather forcast is wrong, because I am fed up with it now.

 

[Judgemental]

I see Metcheck have changed their forecast and brought the possibility of snow forward to noon on 20 December - using Gloucester as the hub of the universe

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/14days.asp?zipcode=gloucester

I agree 1947 (contrary to some sly suggestions, no I was not even thought of in 1947!) the weather did not really get hard until January. Of course in 1963 it started on New Years day and lasted for months.

However taking what we have had to date and the topsy-turvy way the seasons have been behaving in recent years.

Laying in plenty of fodder and hard feed now, trying to sort out the water so it keeps running is no bad thing.

Also there are more what I call, 'leisure ponies and horses' scattered about, living out, belonging to young people, who have never experienced a really hard winter, with days on end of freezing temperatures and snowdrifts that can bury a horse, (figuratively speaking) than in years gone by.

We don't want the media having a field day with pictures and lurid stories of starving ponies etc because the owners cannot reach them to feed them.

 

[Paddydou]

Well I can remember one Christmas when I was very young going out with my brother and my Poppa to feed the sheep. What would normally take about half an hour to an hour absolute tops took all morning up until about 2pm. When we got to the field we all had to be very quiet and listen to hear where they were burried so we could dig them out...

We got home frozen to the bones and had our Christmas dinner all together. It was a very long time ago but I shall never forget it because it was like magic finding all the sheep in a snow cave all huddled together... For a tiny child it was anyway. I remember being so excited to find them and them being really excited to get their nosh!

 

[QassiaDeTouzaine]

Oh noo, this is going to mean even less hunting this season

 

[flowerlady]

Oh noo, this is going to mean even less hunting this season

Hunting I thought that was banned

 

[Old Bat]

I'm a weather site junkie...metcheck does tend to get a bit overexcited 2 weeks ahead....good for one week ahead as a rule but 2 weeks does tend to be a bit overexaggerated.....so lets hope its not quite as bad as it seems!

 

[EAST KENT]

I want snow on christmas eve...lots of it!!:d

 

[padderpaws]

well i am hoping for snow. It means my horse can go out and stay out. Our livery only lets horses out if they can't trash fields and they can't if they are laden with snow. Lots of food and a good rug and mine will be happy.

 

[Amos]

Fear not if u live in Wiltshire - it has a wonderful habit of skirting around us...

 

[EAST KENT]

SNOW is returning by Friday..and according to the Daily Wail a white Christmas is "a certainty"...Goodeeee!!!!

 

[skint1]

I live in Wiltshire and I am hoping it does skirt round us! That last freeze has wrought havoc at my horse's yard.

 

[sadiedeb]

"""" I'm dreaming of a windy Christmas"""""""""""

try not to eat too many sprouts then might not be as windy!

 

[rowy]

I find met check always wrong full stop. they said its not gonna snow and it snows. they say it snows and it doesnt snow. The only thing I look at is temps as its usually accurate for where I am.
Look on metoffice! it gives warnings. I have warnings on thurs, fri and sat this week :S

 

[Amos]

I know snows a pain but lets be frank, no snow means a very wet christmas and I know what I'd prefer.......

 

[rosie fronfelen]

Fear not if u live in Wiltshire - it has a wonderful habit of skirting around us...

Not always Amos, in 62/63 it was above the hedges in Wilts!!

 

[Amos]

Ooh that would be wonderful (for two days max) but I can't cope with the children being off school for much longer then that

 

[Judgemental]

Having started this thread, I feel it incumbent to comment on the future.

I was not around in 1947 but the weather this year is very similar.

History is not necessarily the best yardstick to make predictions but it looks uncomfortably as if this could go on into February.

I know, doom and despondency.

However taking hounds out on foot can be interesting and to watch and listen to hounds in these conditions.

The next question, what to do with the horses? I am going to be extremely careful in what I say, bearing in mind all the expensive liveries and livery yard owners who read this forum. Along with hunt treasurers, although when it comes to money in my humble opinion the cash should not stop flowing to the hunt, sport or no sport, coupled to all the disappointment.

Hacking around the roads that are clear and where they are safe, is often the only option to keep the horses reasonably fit. Of course there are all weather schools and indoor schools.

Does one keep the horses up, or simply temporarily rough them off and bring them back up for spring hunting. That I stress is not a suggestion - it is a question and no doubt, all sorts of folk will come down upon my head for even mentioning the subject. However one has to think of the horses and what is best.

So may I suggest all those who are far more knowledgeable than I, provide some illumination for the younger members, who have never been through this scenario?

 

[1stclassalan]

I was not around in 1947 but the weather this year is very similar.

I rather think that all weather will be similar to another year when we obviously had weather!

Predicting the weather is a very fraught affair - the best professionals get it wrong all the time ( and I'm not thinking about Michael Fish - it wasn't a hurricane just a very strong wind) even over a few days so the art of long range forecasting is an inexact.....erm.... art. The difference between a picture and a photograph.

There's a school of thought that sunspots have a lot to do with the weather - well it's pretty obvious that it has a lot to do with the sun! But pop along to the various websites that publish sunspot data and I defy you to come up with a convincing correlation in all cases for the past let alone predicting the future.