Weather Forecast for Winter 2011/12?

my son announced yesterday that his friend told him in school that we were meant to have snow in october, i just laughed at him but after seeing this i wouldn't be surprised now!
 
Well that headline must have sold them a few newspapers!! People love to panic and speculate!

As for the berries - I agree that its more a sign of the past conditions than whats to come. We've had quite a lot of sun this summer (contrary to popilar belief) mixed with plenty of rain - so everything has grown really well. The reason its all a bit earlier is that spring came early this year, so plants started growing earlier, and so their harvest is earlier..
 
We won't know until a lot closer to the time so I'm not going to panic about it just yet. Have got plenty of hay, rugs, salt for the yard, a sledge to drag water containers on, a kettle, thermals etc so if it happens it happens. If it doesn't that will be a bonus!
 
zoon said:
I'll be getting a sledge to move the hay about after last year trying to push a wheelbarrow through a foot of snow!
Click to expand...

What a brilliant idea! Why on earth didn't we think of that last year when we had no water for over a month and YO never cleared the yard of snow when it fell, so once the snow was compacted,it was like an ice rink. Also, because of the ice rink we couldn't get out of the yard for about 2 months as the horses couldnt walk over it and it's a hell of a long way from our sstable to the road! I'm off sledge shopping!
 
Sledge is a ' must have item ' when i kept my old horse just on the edge of town , if we had snow i would trudge through the streets with her bucket of steaming sugar beat/chaff dinner and got quite a few quizzical looks , now thankfully i've got my own place and this year invested in a large shelter which i shall bed up with straw if it gets too cold - god my lot are spoiled!!!
 
Throughout the year it seems that the weather people rarely got the weather right, so how do they think that they will get the weather right for an extended period?

I think we will get a better result looking at a piece of seaweed, an opening & closing fir cone & of course berries on bushes. ;)
 
Aye, berries et al (though I think it was something to do with what the oceans are doing..., not that I claim to understand it all :cool:).

I'm more interested as I have two ponies out 24/7 and one of them is arthritic, so trying to plan ahead as best as possible :D. The mares will be fine, as we've already been having the Dizz in to make sure she can cope physically with being stabled :D
 
Noooo no no nooooooo or should I say yes *rolls eyes* hubby said have you heard about the really bad winter we are going to get, then I thought hmmm, maybe that’s what that post is about on HHO that I never clicked onto…wish I hadn’t now, the thought of digging my car out, frozen taps, brittle ground, arrrrrh!!!!

It's the driving that really buggered me up, my little Punto just couldn't take it, poor thing looked like a traffic cone stuck in the snow, come back Pajero, all is forgiven (as in how much it cost me in fuel!).

Puntoinsnow.jpg


Wouldn’t mind if I didn’t need to come into work, I’d have plenty of time to spend at the yard sorting the chores and enjoying the snow.
 
I've been corresponding with the stud in Germany who bred my mare . . . . they sent me some lovely pictures of her when she was younger and I've come to the conclusion that we're all a bit girly about snow and rugs (me included, I hasten to add). I commented about the lack of rugs and her charming reply was "We've got a lot of snow every winter. Our horses are outside without rugs as they used to be out every season, so they can prepare themselves for winter.
It's nothing special having around 50cm or more snow in this area"


. . . . look at this: the horses concerned are 15hh Arabs so you work out how deep the snow is! So why did I spend a fortune last winter on a range of thin, medium and thick stable and turn-out rugs????????
P_snow.jpg

mine's the chestnut on the extreme right


Winterbild20Stutenherde.jpg
 
Those photos are lovley Faithcat, and they're quite right about them being fine in snow.

Ours love the snow. Here they are last year, in minus 17 degrees, perfectly happy.

2010snowetc071.jpg


And someone else who loves being belly deep in snow...
HoneySnow.jpg


I actually love the snow, its the wet and mud I hate. Not that I want the snow in October though! Xmas will be fine.
 
Last winter we got a big wooden pallet and piled it up with hay and attatched it to the 4x4, it worked a treat and was great fun, well, someone had to sit on the hay to make sure it didn't fall off!!! :D yes, I am a big kid! ;)
 
hch4971 said:
I prefer cold and dry to wet and very muddy though, have stocked up on rugs so they will all be toastie!
Click to expand...

I have to say I didn't find last winter to be that bad.
The winter before it however, was one of the worst I've seen in a LOOONG time.

Echo the prefer cold and dry to wet and muddy!! And Ihave rugs but don't think mine will have them on unless its super, super bad.
 
I haven't read all of the posts however a few are on about the berries. Our berries were out about 4weeks ago so ours have been on the go for a while now.
Also the deer are down of the high hills now (I think this is quite early for them too). They keep grazing in the fields with the horses. I have been told this is a bad sign as it shows that things are not growing at all on the hills.
 
Wont be any different from the summer then cr@p :rolleyes: if last winter was anything to go by with it hitting minus 20 etc here and the horses were fine then if its the same works for me. Would rather have cold and dry/snow than mild, windy and rainy any year!!
 
I heard the same about snow in October...

Although apparently the worst hit areas will be
-Highlands
-Rest of Scotland
-Northern Ireland
-North West England(Cumbria)
-Parts of North East England

I actually quite like the snow :)
Well- it means a couple of days out of school for me most years although being in Y13 I should probably be thinking snow and a day off is a bad idea! ;)

I'm liking the idea of the sledge, although we have to take water in containers to our field and I guess they may be too heavy for a sledge?
Forecasters don't predict right though often haha so just wait and see what happens,

Oh I should also say the areas I listed above are worst hit but the rest of the UK is still going to be hit very bad!
 
The Met Office have not issued this statement at all, so don't take it for sure. Long range forecasts are so inaccurate, this prediction is most likely mainly due to the cold winter that we've had.
But temperatures of 20 degrees predicted for next week, so the rumours aren't quite living up to expectations at the moment!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top