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Joe90
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30 Oct 2018, 8:32 am

Why is it that, every October or November, as soon as the temperature drops a bit, everyone says it's going to snow in the next few days?
Yesterday a co-worker said, "the temperature has got colder tonight, that means snow is on its way", even though there has been no snow forecasted for this part of the country, and that a common fact is that it is the time of the year where the nights do feel colder than they did back in August.

Also people say that if places in America like New York has snow it means England will get it a week later. That ain't a rule either, as it all depends on what way the wind is blowing and what the weather front is. Sometimes it fizzles out, other times it turns to rain when it hits England, and we have got all the snow from Siberia before, which is the other side.

People say that if there are berries on certain bushes it means a cold winter is on its way. That ain't true either, because the bushes they are talking about naturally grow berries every year, and also I've seen those sorts of bushes full of berries one autumn and we had a mild, wet winter after that. So you can't go by that either.

When a small amount of snow is forecasted only in northern Scotland, everybody seems to think that the whole of southern England is getting it too. Snow is common in the north, year after year. Just because the weatherman says the word "snow", it doesn't mean there will be snow all over the country next week.

And lastly, a few Novembers ago they had a big weather warning on the front of a newspaper saying about the next few months are going to be 'colder than the Arctic' and '6 feet of snow expected for England in the next 4 months'. Then, the next few months came and went and England literally did not get a single flake of snow, it rained throughout the winter and then winter turned to spring. So that was all a lie.

The way I see it, the weather will be what it will be. Last spring they said the summer was going to be a wash-out, but it turned out to be the hottest, driest summer I've known for years. But year after year people still believe these rash weather predictions.

Just thought I'd get it off my chest.


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Trueno
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30 Oct 2018, 8:53 am

I always say... want to know what the weather is? Look out of the window.


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Sahn
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30 Oct 2018, 8:58 am

:lol: When it does snow everyone jumps in their cars and gets stuck.



lostonearth35
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30 Oct 2018, 9:09 am

I live in Canada so I know a thing or two about snow and some of the weirder weather predictions.

For example, there are these fuzzy caterpillars that are usually black on both ends and brown in the middle that are common in the fall, and some people say it's supposed to mean we will get a lot of snow at the beginning and end of winter but there will be much less of it in between. If it's brown at both ends and black in the middle, then it means the opposite. That's just silly. At least they aren't dangerous and picking up and touching them won't make you violently sick like all these other caterpillars I've heard about. 8O



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30 Oct 2018, 12:43 pm

I've seen snowy winters quite a few times in my life. It's one of the perks of living in Canada. I've also got to enjoy about 5 white Christmases.


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30 Oct 2018, 3:07 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
I've seen snowy winters quite a few times in my life. It's one of the perks of living in Canada. I've also got to enjoy about 5 white Christmases.


you're 44, and live in Canada, but have only experienced five White Xmases?

I would have thought it would be more than that. More than one out of nine Xmases.

I live the Washington DC area. Right below the Mason Dixon line. We don't get serious snow until January. So white Xmases are rare down here in the "tropics". Though a friend of mine, my age, says that he remembers more White Christmases back when we were little kids in the early Sixties. Not sure if he remembers right or not.

In more recent years the Great Lakes can become the center of a "snow machine" in the northeast USA that can really hammer New York, New England, and Phillie, and sometime DC too.



naturalplastic
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30 Oct 2018, 3:17 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Why is it that, every October or November, as soon as the temperature drops a bit, everyone says it's going to snow in the next few days?
Yesterday a co-worker said, "the temperature has got colder tonight, that means snow is on its way", even though there has been no snow forecasted for this part of the country, and that a common fact is that it is the time of the year where the nights do feel colder than they did back in August.

Also people say that if places in America like New York has snow it means England will get it a week later. That ain't a rule either, as it all depends on what way the wind is blowing and what the weather front is. Sometimes it fizzles out, other times it turns to rain when it hits England, and we have got all the snow from Siberia before, which is the other side.

People say that if there are berries on certain bushes it means a cold winter is on its way. That ain't true either, because the bushes they are talking about naturally grow berries every year, and also I've seen those sorts of bushes full of berries one autumn and we had a mild, wet winter after that. So you can't go by that either.

When a small amount of snow is forecasted only in northern Scotland, everybody seems to think that the whole of southern England is getting it too. Snow is common in the north, year after year. Just because the weatherman says the word "snow", it doesn't mean there will be snow all over the country next week.

And lastly, a few Novembers ago they had a big weather warning on the front of a newspaper saying about the next few months are going to be 'colder than the Arctic' and '6 feet of snow expected for England in the next 4 months'. Then, the next few months came and went and England literally did not get a single flake of snow, it rained throughout the winter and then winter turned to spring. So that was all a lie.

The way I see it, the weather will be what it will be. Last spring they said the summer was going to be a wash-out, but it turned out to be the hottest, driest summer I've known for years. But year after year people still believe these rash weather predictions.

Just thought I'd get it off my chest.


Don't forget "corns and bunyons" on grandpa's feet. :lol:

Corns and bunions can really hurt more when the air pressure changes and supposedly can be related to coming storms. But old timers using corns and bunions to predict weather was a punchline when I was a kid.

Back in the day folks relied on old wives tales about nature to predict the weather. Some of it was hooey, and some of it might not have been so crazy.

A friend knew a family in Louisiana. A family of wasps would build their nest on the side of their house each spring. And being Louisiana the area would frequently flood. But the flood waters would always top just below where the wasps chose to build their nest on the house that spring. If the nest was low on the house - the flood that year would top just below it. If they built the nest high and above the first floor - then there would a deep huge flood that would drown the first floor and again top off at just below the level of the wasps' unusually high nest.

Then one year the wasp didn't show at all.

That year the storm waters just carried the whole house away!



kraftiekortie
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30 Oct 2018, 5:10 pm

Cockney lives in Vancouver, I believe.

They average maybe 10 inches, 25 cm of snow every winter.

It's usually above freezing there.



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30 Oct 2018, 5:47 pm

On the weather forums, there is a popular saying "It snows when it wants to snow".


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Trogluddite
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30 Oct 2018, 8:50 pm

Might as well trust a bookie as a meteorologist...
Lowest UK White Christmas [betting] Odds for Five Years 8O


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CockneyRebel
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30 Oct 2018, 10:57 pm

I live in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.


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MaxE
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31 Oct 2018, 4:49 am

lostonearth35 wrote:
For example, there are these fuzzy caterpillars that are usually black on both ends and brown in the middle that are common in the fall, and some people say it's supposed to mean we will get a lot of snow at the beginning and end of winter but there will be much less of it in between. If it's brown at both ends and black in the middle, then it means the opposite.
Image
I don't think it's possible for one to be brown at both ends and black in the middle. Anyway, I've always heard that the less orange ("brown?") then the more snow.


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naturalplastic
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31 Oct 2018, 12:23 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
I live in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.


Yeah. I forgot that you live in BC.

That explains it.

BC has a marine west coast climate. Lotsa rain, but very little snow. Very moderate temperatures because of proximity to the sea. The sea and winds blowing from the west moderate the climate (not very hot summers and not very cold winters). So despite being farther north than notoriously cold places in the US, like Minnesota, you have a much milder winters, and less snow than Minnesota (or adjacent parts of Canada like Alberta that are the same latitude as BC).

The British Isles occupy the same latitudes as the Canadian province of Labrador, but the British Isles climate is nothing like Labrador (but much like BC) because the British Isles are on the west coast of Eurasia and have the same kind of marine west coast climate as BC.