Winter
 

I have just met yet another two of my neighbours in the village. Both saying, as have several others, to enjoy the good weather whilst we can. It is going to be a very cold winter indeed. This time based on weather charts they have kept in their (different) families since goodness knows when.

The two wood sellers round-about are sold out. (Luckily I ordered mine some months ago)

Is anyone else hearing the same? Or anything?

Re: Winter
 

Hang on, I'll just pop round to my mate Nostrodamus's house and ask.

Re: Winter
 

Well, it can't be worse than last winter...
There are as many pyracantha, hawthorn and other berries as last autumn, if that's any indication...:(

Re: Winter
 

Yet it wasnt really COLD last winter, just grey and wet; it was the winter before that was truly grinding with 2 weeks of -15! I dont mind cold, just loathe grey skies:)

Re: Winter
 

Bloody well was here! ('Er Indoors is particularly susceptible to cold. I had to peel her long-johns off in June;))

Re: Winter
 

Next time, please upload that to youtube.

Re: Winter
 

Hi, you live in a micro-climate!:)
In the Hérault we had peaks of well below zero and several spells of snow inbetween, not to mention almost continuous rain when the temps were positive.
Maybe not the coldest, but worse than the winter before because it lasted so long...:(

Re: Winter
 

Same here dmu. We lit our last fire in June!
Plenty around here worked their way through a measurable percentage of this winters wood in the Spring, which is the real reason for the wood shortage.
Our wood man was reduced to deliveries of single steres, just to keep his regulars going.

Re: Winter
 

Hi Biggsie!
Down here I have Heard from some locals that Wood is being sold off because there is about to be a change to the taxe Foncière levied on woodland, it appears that it would be cheaper for the farmers to have meadows for cattle fodder rather than coppiced chestnut woodland. At any rate I have been seriously informed that the price of cut chestnut will be going up from its present level of 30 euros a stère (sp?) so if you have any free space the idea is to stockpile a Little Wood for several Winters ahead. We have had a Lovely hot week but now things have become definitely autumnal.
bisous to all
Blackie

Re: Winter
 

Blackie

Thank you. I am planning on storing an extra 40 or 50 steres anyway - IF I can get hold of it.
We get oak -split, cut to size and delivered for 500 Euros for 10 stere - was 450 last year and the year before. I metre lengths to split and cut yourself are 37 Euros a stere (you pick up though).
Chestnut has been 5 to 10 cheaper, but most firewood here is oak.

In the Dordogne three years ago we were charged 600 and 650 for 10 steres.
In Northern Spain- wood was free - but it was only pine and eucalyptus.

Re: Winter
 

micro climate!! NOT : yes it was cold in comparison to a usual year, but for me not as cold (-15) as the previous one (although that spell was just for 2 weeks.
:)

Re: Winter
 

Winters are getting progressively colder (and longer). The European winter this year is expected to be "Brutal", largely due to a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (with the North Atlantic Oscillation following suit), a dearth of sunspot activity at what should have been a peak, and the fact that the climate, despite the ravings of the IPCC, is entering a cooling phase, probably of two decades duration, at least, similar to the Maunder minimum (frost fairs on the Thames).

We would do well to prepare.

Re: Winter
 

Well, I have just ordered an extra twenty steres and the last exterior facing wall is now insulated. So I am prepared.

But the end of the Frost Fairs was a consequence of the construction of the Thames Embankments which both deepened and accelerated the flow of the river rather than the end of the Little Ice Age. (Although I too am of the opinion that the IPCC is a bunch of self appointed Jeremiahs)

Re: Winter
 

What is a negative Pacific Decadal Oscilliation? Never heard of it. Perhaps you mean the El Nino, La Nina cycle? If so it's not quasi-decadal at all and has only a small influence anyway on Europe's weather.

Likewise, El Niños are not strongly coupled to the North Atlantic quasi-biennial Oscillation, which being quasi-biennial can't possibly have any influence on a two decade trend.

The sunspot cycle (which you weirdly claim has somehow got out of phase - it hasn't - is eleven years: there is absolutely no trace of a Fourier signal at 11 yrs in the climate record of any place on earth (which includes Western Europe).

I await with baited breath the sources for your extrapolation.

The Farmer's Almanac?

Re: Winter
 

I find winters in various bits of France to be longer, than often, anticipated. I have been in lots of places where people have become almost dramatic about the sinking temperatures....but in general it's not really that bad is it? Other than a few damp, bleak, weeks? There are a few bad gusty winds that make it unpleasant....but you have all ended up in a nice place, haven't you?