An unusual block.

[Graham Easterling]

In Summer, a blovcked situation can be very good for the SW of England, with an Azores hight ridging up towards us, or settling just to the east.

It's normally a different story in winter.

A block just to the west keep giving a series of danglers, or more commonly the blocking high settles to the E or NE, giving liight winds for many (often a strong SW in the far north o f Scotland) and a relentless cold 'dark' easterly or worse, SE, for Cornwall. Day after day of forecasters talking abought light winds and fogs and it's difficult to stand on the prom, and if you did you'd get drenched the the chop. The return of unsettled westerlies is normally a huge relief

This year there has been a unusual tendency for the high  to remain over or near SW England, which is good news for the windiest County in England IN fact, according the HH Lamb, the tip of Cornwall is the windiest spot (away from high level stations) in the whole of England & Wales.

Of course, his book was written in a century when gales here were common. The change of century (or global warming - it's been a very long lull) has largely turned them off. When a truly severe event does occur, and destruction due to poor coastal maintenance can be blamed on global warming. In the same way the partial destruction EAs stupid tube at Dawlish warren (which cost as much as 100 years of groin maintenance  which they had ignored) in just a few months was blamed on warming. & increased storminess??!! 

See https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/environment-agency-admits-made-dawlish-3660561  I love the sentence "Martin Davies, from the EA, said: "There weren't mistakes. The design was based on predictions which obviously we've established were incorrect." Better articles are available on the available, I just caught be bothered to search at the moment.

It is a shame the global warming debate is now between people who deny it's a problem or happening or man is involved in anyway, and big business/governments who use it as An excuse for failure

As some big political football

A reason to fly around to plant a tree as part of a promotional photocall

To claim something is carbon neutral when the fact it isn't is perfectly clear to a mentally difficient hamster

To say I told you so. 

At least there's still Greenpeace.

I've forgotten what a decent gale is. We still seem to get as many large seas, indicating the activity remains, but this century rarely affects Cornwall in a big way. Better for surfing of course, as the swells had time to clean up. Recent years have seen surf more like you had to go to Portugal for.

Graham (grumpy old man rant!)

Penzance

[Tim Furdui]

Horribly boring weather here in London

often sunny - yes - but chilly 

nothing exciting but whether is going to be sunny or cloudy 

lots of fog warning issued but we had little to no fog this year 

the worst kind of weather for January

hope Feb will make up for the lack of excitement - it does seem to be alternate - quiet periods with stormy ones - so fingers crossed 

[Tudor Hughes]

As an equally grumpy and even older (80 next Nov) ranter I must say I agree with you, Graham.  In the last few years I can hardly remember a decent front going through, let alone anything more dramatic.  The weather seems persistently stuck in bland mode.  Fewer thunderstorms (confirmed by a recent Weather article) and very noticeable, too.

            Just to clarify things I should say that I have no doubt the world is a warmer place and that man is very largely the cause of it.  Yet we are constantly yelled at (at least in the bloody Guardian) that all hell is about to be let loose.  From a meteorological point of view that seems to be the opposite of what is actually happening which is not altogether surprising given that the temperature gradient between the pole and the equator has decreased and the stormiest weather in the last few centuries has been when the sharpest temperature contrasts have moved south.

Tudor , Warlingham 

[Graham Easterling]

I've posted a link to this before, it's a video made of the Sennen Cove lifeboat with feedback from the MetO. If you go 3 minutes in Terry (the then coxswain) asks why have recent years been so quiet, when it was supposed to be getting stormy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzCQSpHPu_8

The video is now nearly 10 years old, and still a great lack of stormy weather. This makes the MetO reply, basically rather sidestepping the question and just saying it's bit of a normal cycle, seem even weaker.

I agree, it does seem counterintuitive to expect it to get stormier when the the N - S temperature gradient is decreasing. When I've mentioned this before I've been told that's over simplistic, as the atmosphere is 3D. Fair point, but the fact remains that the main changes here in the last 30 years or so have been decreased storminess & increase in temperature.

Graham

Penzance, 

[Len W]

And here in SW Devon and most other places in UK, ( I've analysed UKMO regional rainfall series) an increasing summuer (JJA) rainfall.

That should not be happening according to the UKMO climate model projections over the last 20 years.

They are still saying warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers.

Len

Wembury