recklessabandon

Sorry Nick I clearly missed your post on this, my bad. It is a shame, I love cold and snow, but we live in the UK, and we far are more likely to experience some 'great' storms and very varied synoptic solutions than Atlantic blocking and deep cold. Sometimes we should embrace what we have and also remember, it is because of our highly dynamic and varied climate that we have such an entrenched love of weather and climate, and such an advanced METO. Some pretty exciting stuff going on out there tonight, and looking at the models, plenty more to come in the short to medium term. I would be interested to know if anyone has a record for the number of times in a season Cairngorm recorded more than 150mph....?

Loving the fact that despite not being able to stand up outside and having the chimney stack nearly ripped off the roof, such an event has barely appeared on the model discussion. You could be mistaken for thinking this is an Atlantic storm that just hasn't appeared on the models.... .... lots of interesting stuff going on right now let alone FI, not least that for the 2nd time this winter surface winds have exceeded 150mph in the UK (Cairngorm AWS and broken it!)....seems NA zonality and storms just aren't enough for discussion....

To be fair Kev you make a point, but I think if you cut through the 'hopecasting' and people trying to find pattern change which isn't really robust/supported, you will be left with the LRFs from more experienced members of the forum who have been generally consistent with a mid (ish) January pattern shift. With a lack of perceived interest through December in the models, it has been inevitable that people are looking for the upstream signals for the pattern changes GP, BFTP etc have been talking about. BTW, IMO it is far easier to create a wooley generic 15-30 dayer during zonal conditions....fair chance of some element being correct...

pic of Shotley's tree from last year to remind us what we are all missing.... anyway....back onto the here and now....is it snowing yet?

c'mon c'mon, we all know Durham CC cant afford to light up the Christmas trees.....

we might get something out of this up here, winds will be so strong that upland Durham may score as the showers may make it over

the Christmas Tree has more guy ropes than Burnhope Mast, built for the weather!

im waiting for £'000s pounds of improvements to occur in Consett as a result....

yer was strange one last year with the easterly flow not making it far in. 2009/2010 was epic. take that winter over 2010/2011 winter anytime, some great days on the hill.

Happy days for the guys up at Yad Moss...another good start to the season in the offing for them!

Edge of Consett, and I get the bonus of a clear view up to Waskerley pretty much which means I can see lots of snow without having to get my car stuck.... About 800' has been the snow line, about that depths increase quite quickly. I haven't been on the moor today but the browns are nearly all white, which given that the heather is about 6-12" deep is a good indicator! Cant help feeling Friday will be downgraded, but if not the cold front could give some fun and games to the higher areas again. Sorry if it sounds negative, but I don't hold great expectations for the lower altitude locations, largely because I think the cold front will deliver most of it's ppn before the cold air really digs in, white hills and green valleys.

probably to get a flight out of the UK to Canada..... Seriously though, the hilly western parts of the region have done OK (weardale, teesdale and Consett of course), and the lack of influence from the sea (lower DPs) means it is sticking even in bright sunshine so from my IMBY view, we have done OK. It being the north-east, look for the least likely set-up, then it will snow.....that aside, think Weds am, early on....

lovely bluebird day here, last night's thin covering of snow is still lying making it feel very alpine....

like a skating rink outside, everything is iced with an icy wind blowing off the snow-covered moors, clear skies....beautiful....

as predicted/guessed, dusk has seen the showers pep-up and break over the pennines, light sleet/snow now.

sounds about right, I would be surprised if we see anything significant in terms of ppn away from the upland areas. Unless we see some troughs then this the typical result from a PM flow in the NE I am afraid.

yup your right, we just have to deal with it. its the same reason why a n-easterly results in use getting hammered. still, i can see it out of the window on the hills

can see about 10km west and the skies are clear out all the way onto the pennines. bit of gap for now. wind direction doesn't favour us atm

OK just been out on the bike. snow line for dry lying snow was at Waskerley, at around 400m, this also roughly formed the eastward extent of the showers as I could see it. Westward of this point snow was virtually persistent (if varying in intensity) with full cloud cover. Eastward was mainly sunny skies with partial cloud, and you could see to Newcastle. I suspect there is a way to go before the major towns see anything (if at all) but the upland areas will probably get a good pasting. Typically under this scenario I see showers 'breaking' over the hills around dusk to effect the more easterly locations, and I suspect this will happen this evening. Oh, and the wind is evil!

moderate wet snow in Consett this morning gave a temporary covering, everything above about 1000' is white out and some very black clouds sat over the West Durham moors, however DPs and Temps need to drop a fair bit yet IMO to get snow to the low lying areas. Reports that the A686 and A689 are now very difficult around the Durham/Cumbria border

Could be some real fun and games above 1000' over the next day or so.....I remember about 1.5 weeks ago amongst all of the doom and gloom posting that 'this PM flow will do us just fine.....' (IMBY I Know!)

Snow in Consett and the adjacent moors up to 1500ft are looking very white, I suspect many cms of wet slushy snow up there now....

some very heavy snow showing on the Scottish traffic cameras in the highlands, also reaching as far south as the border hills....happy days

sounds about right, cheers

Re: the cities - I recall a thread from last winter on the UK's snowiest cities, not sure if anyone recalls this or the conclusions?