Andy Bown

Managed a bone chilling -0.2c on Friday evening's few hours of clear sky!!!

It's just like when fronts cross from the Atlantic towards the East, they die out during their progress leaving less rain to the East.

Ideally we want a few hours of clear sky to allow the temperature to drop and cool the ground like happened last evening/night. Unfortunately though no hard frost to lower the ground temperature enough to subsequently sustain snow cover. Not sure when it last snowed throughout the day, so a very rare occurrence indeed today even though it ultimately may as well have rained! However my 6 month old enjoyed being out in it, happily moving his hands towards the flakes! I caught a few perfect hexagonal flakes on my jumper but they melted too quickly before we could get pictures.

Meanwhile in Warminster it's been flurrying/snizzling all day and nothing on radar over here most of the time ! We often have drizzle that doesn't show up so today is the snow equivalent!

Second morning this winter we have woken to an already melting 1cm covering. Both occasions have fallen on ground that hasn't been cold enough to sustain the cover.

My life! We have a decent dusting on all surfaces! Can even see it 'glowing' on the rooftops in the streetlight! Winter 2016/2017 you are amazing!!!! 2 settling snow events with a sum total of 1.5cm ish!!

All of a quiver! Lol. A few hours of clear sky allows the temperature to drop, frost to form and a recent flurry to settle on my frosty car. Could go and count the settled flakes lol !!

2.4c and flurrying flakes for the last half hour. Fairly clear sky too so nice and bright with it.

My expectations for tomorrow, Friday and Saturday are for similar to several days in March 2013 ; bitter wind, sunny spells, snow flurries from the thickest cloud but very minimal settling.

One thing one cannot do when bathing their 6 month old baby is get up and check if it is hailing!! The radar shows red over my postcode about half an hour ago and something was battering against the bathroom window, does anyone know if it was hail? Temperature is dropping quickly, 3.7c from 7.2c an hour ago.

Absolutely vile, heavy soaking drizzle which is not being picked up by the radar. Please can I have my sunny frosty winter back!?

That happened just as the sun was setting, the thickest cloud would have passed from the western sunset sky by that time because the heaviest rain had moved away , so the thinner cloud allowed some sunlight through hence the yellow glow.

Proper downpour now, probably the heaviest rain since 20th November.

Lol all the freezing weather with no snow etc and a milder day today brings hailstones now!

How much rain have you had in the nearly 10 weeks since the exceptionally wet weekend of 18th-20th November Mike? Until late pm yesterday I had measured just 64mm in nigh on 10 weeks of late Autumn/Winter.

To be honest it is long overdue.

There have been some very localised colder spots this week. For example this morning I left Trowbridge at 09.00 to drive home and coming through Westbury came across a very frosty area which would have been about a mile square, either side of that area there was no sign of anything white.

Bitterly cold air = check. Extensive thick cloud = check. Precipitation = no. Colder now at 0.8c than it was at 06.00 this morning!

I did too, blocked paving is the slippiest surface! Thankfully had a soft landing due to 4 layers of clothing!

Offerman ; that snow would almost certainly have been caused by crystallised freezing fog. It is very rare!

Ian mentioned snow grains for Thursday on his Points West forecast, it looks like being early in the day before drier, clearer air heads North. Amazing that some parts of the region have had fog for 48 odd hours when others, like here, have had unbroken sunshine both days! Pretty decent diurnal range too, from -3.7c up to 8.0c .

Beautiful looking south from Trowbridge towards Salisbury Plain.

Hope you're ok John! By contrast it's simply cloudy and frosty in Trowbridge which is a relief as I wouldn't have wanted to work in those conditions!

I'm not sure the gales/rain are going to turn up anytime soon. Fax charts show fronts still well to the West in the Atlantic on Thursday with the block holding pretty firm. Personally it looks a week's time at the earliest that a front might arrive.

The 5th consecutive clear, sunny and frosty morning! Is there moisture due to arrive later and overnight? Fog seems prevalent in app forecasts.