In Lancashire, Northwest England, it has been relatively mild this year, though the summer sunshine was too. Reading the most recent comments it seems most of Northern Europe is the same.
The last few winters, on average, have been bitterly cold, with snow often falling through December culminating through January (from memory, though I have discussed this with an older mind who agrees this winter has been relatively mild – thus far). Winter last year in London, i lived in my thermals.
That said, in this month of December we have caught the tail end of 2 'hurricanes', one at the beginning of the month and another 23/24th Dec. We are bang on the coast so high winds are common throughout the year but I'm not familiar with such persistent strong winds at this time.
I came across this new satellite wind map http:// earth.nullschool.net via a YT Spaceweather video, it's real time (and though slow loading for me) it's so easy to use for a beginner. Particularly as we are experiencing quite intense gales of late.
From my searches online, I understand this repeated exposure to hurricane force storms is to increase, particularly in winter. They're created out West and essentially slam Ireland, then England and then rip through Western Europe.
I expect the flagging Gulf stream will have effected this?
I'm currently watching another system out in the Atlantic, which according to the satellite, will move north and breakdown above the UK. So we should be OK.
The website 'Ice Age Now' (and his accompanying documentaries) mentioned the swells of sea water we will experience are to occur on the East coast, which has already happened this year.
I've been keeping an eye on the reactions of folk, and it seems many will look to the government to tell them which water wings to wear. The residents of flooding in Surrey ('middle class') were left to fend for themselves over Christmas. PM David Cameron's (eurgh) arrival a few days later - with press, the council, oh and rescue crews - was met with fierce criticism by those who felt Christmas was a time when mother nature took time off in her stockings for a winter break with Santa.
We're relatively blessed on this fair isle (which is probably why it was deemed such?) when it comes to weather phenomena, but it appears this is changing rapidly; mini-tornado's, odd foaming sea's, rivers breaking their banks and flooding more frequent.
I was surprised to read that 2013 is has been the quietest year on record regarding weather phenomena. It may be that the occurrences are just more bizarre in location and timing;' Snow in Egypt, flooding in Saudi Arabia, snow in summer in Australia etc... OR the weather systems are just bigger, like the 3 tornado's converging to 1 in OK this year (of course it may be the presstitutes are distorting facts).
