recklessabandon

Yeah I am in Durham atm and saw the sleet/graupal/rain. Classic NE weather mind you!

Temps are now dropping slightly in this band of PPN, perhaps a bit of evaporative cooling taking place. Snow line yesterday was around 1000' for 'dry' falling snow and I don't suspect in truth it is hugely different today. The air flow is crossing a lot of sea very slowly at the moment and keeping us toasty warm (well relatively...)

The coastal temps are being heavily propped up by the North Sea I think at the moment, Hartlepool is more than 2C warmer than Durham, I think the slack surface flow must be being subject to significant modification from the North Sea.

1.8C DP at -0.7C and light rain in Durham City, would expect it to be a bit whiter in Consett.....

East of the A1 temps are widely between 3 and 4C with DPs hovering around 0C so it will be probably rain and sleet if those showers made landfall at the moment, west of the A1 temps and DPs fall off widely to between 1 and 2 C with DPs of -1 t -3C, but at this stage I wouldn't be too hopeful of seeing much PPN west of the A1. I am happy to be surprised though....

light snow in Durham city about the same time. band is advancing east to west, more pronounced but less intense than yesterday. as a subtext, it was interesting to note how strong the easterly flow felt at almost 2000ft yesterday on the Durham moors....

would not surprise me if we saw some mesoscale activity popping up out of nowhere in the next 24-48 hours under this scenario, the temp gradient as the cold uppers cross over the North Sea may well be upwards of 12C by later today.

How do you begin to describe Consett to someone from outside the area......?

It must be a huge town, it is signposted from everywhere in the North-east lol Consett, Leadgate, Blackhill, Bridgehill and Shotley must cover 10 square km?

Bit of a covering in Consett, maybe 2 or 3 cm on the grass. Wet and heavy on the roads.

Temperatures widely seem to be around 2.5 to 4C across the north, with temps as low as 0C in the north pennines, tonights rain/snow going to be interesting......

Apparently sightings in Northern Scotland were as early as 20:30 last night

Heavy wet snow and sleet in Consett at 6pm....

I think the METO and several others will be getting very sore posteriors from all the fence sitting they will have to do in the next 48-72hours. With the models flip-flopping the way they are and with complications being borne from upstream conditions being in areas of lower data I dont think it is that surprising. What I would say though, is that the the LP progged to cross northern Scotland in the next 24hours dragging the cold air behind, has been modelled by GFS almost continuously for a week or more now in almost every run with every track around +/-200 miles of each other, if it verifies as such, then well done GFS.

T+180 too far atm, but some more fascinating evolution over the Alps again, 1 week of respite and that could be it before another real pasting. Could well be some records falling this winter, and I think if this comes into reliable there could be another real big storm to go with this winter's theme. Closer to home, and I know it is T+192, but that would be another to add to the collection for this winter's storms if it were to verify, that is one deep depression.... Chase the snow in the alps and the storms over the northern UK, trust me, you will have far more fun....

I have been mulling over the concept of a move to cooler or even cold zonality in the medium term as an evolution for a little while now on a personal basis, with the downstream effects of stratospheric warming coming in later february or even march an manifesting as a northerley or north easterley flow similar to Feb/March 2007 I think. This is something I am looking out for, but don't have enough experience or knowledge to identify the signals yet that I should be looking for. I do think this maybe is where we will head though having being watching the models fairly closely this winter.

I think we began to see this pattern at T+240 around the 31st Dec if I recall correctly, which would confirm what many are saying that this evolution is sliding back and back, as the 31st + 240 hours is next Mon/Tues, when we will now be sunning ourselves in barmy SW breezes....it might be 'jam tomorrow' but I fear the jam will have gone stale by the time we get it looking at the current outputs....

I also recall (though maybe something of a sweeping generalisation) GFS trying to bring us back into zonality last December in numerous runs, whilst the snow continued to bury my car outside..... I think i agree with you though, during November the GFS FI showed cold, had a weekend off, then came back with a bang into the reliable.

GFS has Tuesday's storm tracking slightly further south now than last night, therefore affecting much more of the northern UK on this revised track, a track change of one or two degrees will make a huge difference, especially as I think the cold air it drags in with it to its trailing edge will see some wintry ppn. Can see blizzard conditions affecting high-level routes of northern UK and some disruptive/damaging wind.

re: LP at around T+120. ECM had this featured a few days ago only to bin it to an extent. GFS seems to be running with it once again. ECM had it originally as a pretty interesting feature in terms of both wind and potential for snow, especially to it's back edge as it pulls in some colder uppers, especially for the northern UK. Could be something to watch in the absence of anything else, might result in some temporary snow cover at least in the northern UK, even to more modest levels if it verifies pulling in uppers of around -5....

pretty naughty looking LP system tracking across the northern UK again, at T+117, one to watch for sure, timing at the moment has it pinned for when most people will be heading back to work after the Christmas break especially in the northern UK, could cause issues if it verifies on this track....one to watch and see.....

The resulting solution from what is now T+228 has been in and out the models a few times now at around the 7th-10th Jan. Interesting that it has been modelled on a number of occasions, even after having been binned. Of specific interest is an undercutting low at now T+300 which has also been a solution seen before in the past couple of days. Not sure what the low res verification is like for GFS at the moment (I know GFS verification is not at it's best at the moment), but I have noticed (though not measured scientifically) that it 'hasn't been too far out' on a number of occasions through the autumn and early winter.....and that this piece of the PV spinning into Scandinavia has been modelled pretty consistently of late....

Thanks Cloud. What is interesting is that it possibly reinforces a point that some senior members were making earlier today (apologies I don't recall who) not to get hung up with every output of the GFS, especially given it's current verification record.

Interesting, especially in the context of the earlier model discussions regarding the current accuracy of the ECM in comparison to the other models. The ECM does also 'feel' on top for accuracy at the moment, I use the word 'feel' on the basis of the amount of time I spend outdoors experiencing the resolutions!

We are in danger of losing objectivity in argument as a consequence though aren't we? That all said, something has changed in the past few days, I am not sufficiently experience to really understand what, however, I am minded to think that those who identified mid-jan as a pattern changed period may be on to something. The only nagging doubt is that for the past 2 years prior to our 'extreme' spells.....the signs were there well in advance.....