Is snow due in Dec

[Heather]

We often get US snow a few weeks after them. Long range forecast I have is threatening it.
Just a point to new beekeepers. If snow, don't bother to clear from the entrance, bees will be fine.
If entrances not blocked , put some sort of shade (piece of wood or thick waterproof material) over the entrance to stop any bright sunshine reflecting off the snow into the hive. Bees think a glorious day, come out into the bitter cold ... and die.

 

[Tim.S]

Good tip. I use old hessian sacks hung down the front of the hive (brick on top) to cover the entrance. Stops the little girls seeing the light and keeps the entrance clear at the same time.

 

[YorkshireBees]

If you are using OMF's and have a landing board then you can also just build a pile of snow onto the landing board in front of the entrance.

When the snow has melted enough for the entrance to be exposed then more than likely the temp gone up enough that the majority of the snow on the ground has also melted.

 

[Little John]

This is the sort of precaution Heather is talking about:

If your boxes don't have OMF's (which the National on the left didn't at that time), then put snow boards in place whenever snow is forecast, as they will keep the entrances open in all but the most exceptional conditions.

LJ

 

[Erichalfbee]

If you are using OMF's and have a landing board then you can also just build a pile of snow onto the landing board in front of the entrance.

When the snow has melted enough for the entrance to be exposed then more than likely the temp gone up enough that the majority of the snow on the ground has also melted.

What a simple but brilliant solution!
Especially useful if your boxes are on stands high enough for there to be snow underneath visible through the OMF

 

[Dishmop]

BeeSki slope.

 

[MuswellMetro]

We often get US snow a few weeks after them. Long range forecast I have is threatening it.
Just a point to new beekeepers. If snow, don't bother to clear from the entrance, bees will be fine.
If entrances not blocked , put some sort of shade (piece of wood or thick waterproof material) over the entrance to stop any bright sunshine reflecting off the snow into the hive. Bees think a glorious day, come out into the bitter cold ... and die.

see photo below, they flying into the ground as they get confused due to the snow reflected light being polarised

 

[wessexmario]

To answer the OPs question,
I have a friend who is an amateur weather forecaster, he has his own weather station connected to the Met Office and he studies a lot of different climate models (excluding the Daily E#press ) and while there's always a caveat in predicting UK weather anything more than 3 days in advance, he recently posted this:

"Over the last couple of months, long range forecasting methods have been suggesting that January is showing as higher risk of wintery conditions with lower than average temperatures. The risk of snow is implied.
The latest observations are converging on this idea. December is looking to be unsettled but not unseasonably cold. December isn't normally the coldest month anyway."

 

[Heather]

Going mad here , one colony going ballistic pulling in 3 types of pollen...Bring on the snow, slow them down.. I need the rest if they don't!!
But good advert for P....s poly Nucs. This one is now rammed.

 

[Little John]

I'm finding this situation (i.e. the not-knowing of what this winter will bring) to be very interesting indeed, for it might at last settle 'the battle' between two very different weather-forecasting methodologies.

The Met Office, along with many other forecasting institutions, waits until weather begins to manifest itself, and then collates vast amounts of data from the earth's surface before running this data through computers containing weather-modelling software.

They are saying (well, sort-of) that this winter will be mild:

Met Office predictions suggest this winter is likely to be relatively mild as well. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30243635

SUMMARY - TEMPERATURE:
For both December and December-January-February as a whole above-average UK-mean temperatures are more likely than below-average.
Overall, the probability that the UK-mean temperature for December-January-February will fall into the warmest of our five categories is around 25% and the probability of falling into the coldest of our five categories is near to 10% (the 1981-2010 probability for each of these categories is 20%).

At this point I'd make the comment that this 'probability' stuff is just so much rubbish - it might make a lot of mathematical sense for those playing with figures inside an office, but out here in the real world - to be told (for example) that there is an 80% probability of rain means absolutely zilch. It either rains or it doesn't. If it *does* rain, then you're within the 80% band, and if it *doesn't*, then - geewhiz - you fall within the 20% band. Either way the weather forecaster has 'correctly' forecasted the weather. Huh.


Ok - on to the competition - this being Piers Corbyn's 'Weather Action' operation, which forecasts long-term trends by monitoring the sun's surface activity, and thus predicting the effects this will have upon our weather, long before it manifests itself upon the earth's surface.

Piers says (of the Met Office forecast):
"For this particular winter the "milder (at least till New Year)-wetter and windier than normal" prognosis we would estimate has only a 5% chance of being confirmed."

The Express (and I'm not going to mock anybody) comments:

"Piers Corbyn and his team at WeatherAction say extreme solar and lunar activity is causing huge rifts in the flow of the jet stream with record low December temperatures possible.
He said the same weather pattern which triggered the killer United States freeze is about to open the flood gates to a blast of Arctic and Siberian air.

He said: “The beginning of December could bring close to record low temperatures with the first half of the month signalling the dramatic change in weather. The jet stream is fluctuating north-south instead of east-west and this is what will cause the extreme changes in the weather.
It is leading to a warming of the stratosphere which though [it] sounds contradictory, will trigger the very severe start to winter that we expect.

It is this which caused the extreme snow in America, and though we will not get the exact same snowflakes, there is a link to what we are expecting in the UK. This is a very serious warning as the Met Office outlook is very different, we think they are wrong.”

So - it will be interesting to see which of these methods of forecasting comes out of this smelling of roses, and which of cow-dung ...

LJ

 

[Hivemaker.]

We often get US snow a few weeks after them. Long range forecast I have is threatening it.

If the forecast is via the BBC, then best to completely ignore it, don't know who they get their info from, but they cannot even get the weather forecast right for the same day they forecast it now, they were at it again this morning, guessing what the weather was going to be like today, turned out to be all wrong so far.

 

[wessexmario]

I like the way the BBC often spends the first five minutes of the forecast telling you what the weather was like earlier in the day for your area, but thinking "I don't remember that happening today?"

 

[beeno]

I agree with most of the above, although I was amazed to find out that my recent 'local forecast' of all rain turned out to be a glorious day whilst three miles away it did rained all day as the forecast stated. On another occasion Accuweather stated that it will rain within 48 mins. and it did! It is probably also a question of when they are right no one notices, but if they are wrong boy. However, it might be very inconvenient if you are re-roofing for example.

 

[yeogi75]

its probably the same as forecasting how your hive is going to be over winter,
some get it right some get it wrong