Ocean Transit

Was that the local forecast? if so, thta should have the latest from the Met Office as I believe they have a conference call with Exeter at 3pm.

18.28 BBC1 forecast: Looking good for tomorrow night and Friday. City temperatures are lower too

Today is event 1 of 3 Friday is much more significant then today lol

Excellent news from the models this morning IMO, that the majority of us will have at least some snow left on the ground Christmas morning. Whether or not snow will fall on the big day remains in the balance. Heavier snow starting to fall as I type. How our winters in the SE have changed since 2003

Light snow has commenced here -0.6 deg. C

Hot off the press... FAUK18 EGRR 160200 VALID DEC 16/0300Z TO 16/0900Z. SE ENGLAND AND E ANGLIA: GEN FINE BUT WITH ISOL FZFG PATCHES AND BKN ST AT FIRST. BECMG BKN TO OVC STSC, AND BKN LYR AC, WITH OCNL RASN (ISOL SN) SPREADING S DURING THE MORNING WITH SOME ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY. SMALL RISK OF EMBD CB AND TS SEA COT FAR E ENGLAND. SN WILL DIE OUT LATER, WITH EXTENSIVE BR AND LOW CLD DEVELOPING. VIS GEN GOOD AT FIRST, BECMG POOR TO VERY POOR IN SN LATER, AND VERY POOR IN HILL FG THROUGHOUT. Can't publish Thursday night's charts for copyright reasons but excellent prospects for Thursday night (EA/SE) from the UKMO. 5CM for a many Eastern parts of Kent and Essex. Details will change no doubt but looking good into the London area as well as East Anglia. Expect routine advisories from the UKMO around 11AM this morning for Thursday night into Friday (Saturday not looking so good with higher threat of rain/drizzle - forget about that for the time being as it will most likely change!) Happy days...

LONDON/STANSTED EGSS 152258Z 1600/1706 VRB03KT 6000 BKN020 BECMG 1600/1603 4000 BR PROB30 1603/1609 0300 FZFG BKN001 BECMG 1609/1612 -RASN -SN BKN006 TEMPO 1612/1624 BKN004 PROB30 TEMPO 1612/1619 1000 SN BKN001 BECMG 1616/1619 RADZ Rather messy, a bit of everything thrown in

About 45 minutes until the next update from Exeter then I'll head to bed me thinks Temperature continuing to drop, although more sharply now. -0.7 deg. C. Can see Bradwell power station in the distance lit up from the window. Normally on a Easterly when it disappears snow is rolling in

Finally can see the stars and temperature dropping. -0.2 deg. C.

Their were significant differences in the new model run (18Z) which was fed into the graphics. All change by breakfast time. Nothing to worry about.

http://www.wzkarten.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png After the brief blip tomorrow, much lower 850s for a 72 hours for when the North Sea snow machine is switched on Couple more members join the prolonged cold spell club. All to play for next week, but we must focus on the next couple of days. Pesky cloud continues streaming in here holding the temperatures up.

lol I was just explaining why there was a sudden turn around on the tv forecasts. It's nothing to do with the graphics, it's the data that is fed into them. As far as I can see from the fax charts and what I'm seeing/hearing from Exeter, nothing has changed. Just a dodgy run of the model which was shown on television.

12Z ECM and GFS extended ensembles for London SURFACE TEMPS Still some very cold runs but a slow warming trend at the surface beyond Christmas Eve

The focus of my post is entirely on EA and the SE. There were two parts to my post. One for tomorrow and one for Thurs/Fri. Tomorrow: (Wednesday) is pretty much 'nailed now' - snow to rain/sleet then back to snow during the evening. Thurs/Fri: I didn't get to see the 12Z run of the UKMO NAE model but I'm guessing it increased snowfall quite widely. When this was added to the BBC forecasts late afternoon/evening we saw that run of the model. Since then, the newer run (the 18Z) has totally backtracked on widespread snow and has limited it to northern parts of East Anglia and Lincs. This is the reason why Kent/Essex is free of any activity. Sorry for the confusion, but it's not often we have three possible snow events in a week (and that's not including the weekend lol)

Evening all Left rather confused by the latest national forecast as it doesn't really match the 18Z run of the UKMO NAE model Good agreement now that snow will turn increasingly to sleet and then rain across the home counties as the band moves south Wednesday afternoon, but signs on the latest run of turning back to sleet/snow on the back edge as cooler upper temperatures moves in from the North-East and catches up with the fragmenting band of precip around 18Z tomorrow. The major issue tomorrow night will be ICE. The emphasis will focus on this on television forecasts tomorrow rather then snow. Now... Thursday and Friday. Latest data suggests further North then originally forecasts (I think that is the reason for the major back-track on BBC forecasts since teatime.) At one point this evening I saw a forecast with snow all down the coast from Newcastle to Kent. Now it's much more coastal and over East Anglia rather then Kent. For the time being, I'm relying on the fax charts more so then the NAE model. And going more NIMBY... I think Paul mentioned +ive temps in Essex. Still +0.4C here under high cloud. Official obs from Writtle to the West are -0.3C and Andrewsfield North of here is -0.7C. Next discussions from the Ops centre at Exeter are due shortly after 2AM and the NAE update at 3AM. I will post a summary around then.