North Downs Snowboarder

Been for a walk into the small country village of Ash on the Kentish North Downs this morning. For reference, this isn't far from Brands Hatch and Wrotham radio mast. There's been minimal melt here, nothing soft underfoot, and I should imagine this snow will stick around until Sunday.

I'm happy to make the huge sacrifice of sitting out a British winter in the name of science. I've heard rumours that it never snows in those places - hard to believe - but we'd finally know for sure

If you want to widen it out to British Overseas Territories I'm happy to take funding to go on a lengthy fact-finding climate trip to the British Virgin Island and the Cayman Islands.

V interesting question, I'd put my money on the Scilly Isles, I believe there's a weather station on the main island that's rarely recorded a sub zero temperature. Scilly climate: average weather, temperature, precipitation, best time WWW.CLIMATESTOTRAVEL.COM Climate information for Scilly (England) - weather averages, seasons. With some advice on the best time to visit.

Back in mid-Jan I saw the first shoots of Daffodils sprouting out the ground and I thought 'Huh, that's a month early', then I remembered there had barely been a frost here before Christmas. Spring flowers were showing their hand early despite the cool Easterly from NYD onwards. At the very least this cold spell will have pushed us closer to the average for frosts, bringing plant growth back in line with the seasons and killing pathogens in the soil. I'd find that immensely reassuring even if my TV reception was slightly affected

Minimal melt here so far. Been for early morning walks here the past two days and it's really felt like being in a ski resort. The wind has really picked up today, I walked into Fawkham Valley which motor racing fans might know is right next to Brands Hatch. Walking back up the hill the strong Easterly wind felt incredibly refreshing!

Compare the temps inside and outside London right now on NW's Current Weather map - the UHI is an absolute blowtorch

It's a really basic Nokia phone - I can only send pics to email addresses or other phones, it's never been a problem before yesterday and today, hopefully a temporary blip.

Heaviest snow of the spell so far here on the North Downs. Has recovered all the surfaces cleared by the wind/gritting. Sorry can't post any new pics, mobile phone reception is bad here, seems to be stopping any phone > computer transfer

My nan used to take the Daily Express, in recent years I've come to understand why - its commitment to the weather is 2nd to none! If I were to nitpick I'd say it underplays severe/extreme events but I suppose you could put that down to classic British reserve

Here are two pics from this morning, plus one taken just now. It's very difficult to get an accurate level snow reading because it's been blown about so much. However I estimate it's around 7cms on my garden chairs

What happened here, which I'm sure has been widespread, is settling snow away from concrete/tarmac through Sunday morning and afternoon, followed by a freeze on Sunday night which turned paths and roads into skating rinks. Now there's a layer of fresh snow on top of that. Perhaps we haven't reached the deep snow depths forecast yet (there's still time) but could conditions underfoot and for driving be any worse than fresh snow on top of sheet ice? Also I've got to say that the wind here yesterday was relentless, even when the snow was light it was so bitter you wouldn't want to be outside for more than a few minutes.

Cracking pics there, especially the 2nd one. Full respect to anyone taking pics outside today, I'm just taking short walks round the block, those that say it's not quite cold enough are overlooking windchill!

This is the view from my upstairs front window, like so many places in the region it's tried so hard to settle on paths/roads here but not quite managed it yet. There has, however, been enough snow to give plants that laden look, such as the Yew Tree hedge next to my communal path. Will be interesting to see if we end up with a full covering from the upcoming snow after dark. My Met Office forecast is still going for a lot more snow through tonight, tomorrow morning and Monday night.

I finished my daily litterpick near a farmyard a bit earlier. I called in on the farmers in their office, they're good friends of mine. I asked, "So are you all ready to clear the lanes, we're set for some severe weather?" (Farmers are asked by Highways Depts to clear country roads if they get really bad). The reply, "Yeah we're just fitting the snowplough now." Excited!

Fingers crossed there isn't a complete breakdown of public order due to aggressive lockdown-breaking mass snowball fights in South London that leads to this:

Do you think it might get cold?

Let's hope this Big Freeze is a trigger to give those desperately underfunded council gritting teams the support they need. Finally!

That chart has more black parallel lines than the bottom of a swimming pool - amazing synoptics

Just took a look at the SW England thread - reports of snow around Bristol, Bath, the Salisbury Plain even coastal Weston-Super-Mare. So not just the higher ground of Dartmoor, Quantocks and Cotswolds. I don't want to jinx things, but timing of the precipitation could be in our favour as it could last well after 4pm.

For those who are worried about flooding/waterlogging in your area (still terrible here, torrents of water running off fields making country roads impassable on foot) spare a thought for the counties around Los Angeles. Las Tablas in San Luis Obispo County has had 15.25 inches in three days, I make that 384mm. Our American cousins have such a great way with words, NWS (National Weather Service) Los Angeles warns people to look out for 'ponding in laneways' on its twitter feed - that's one for you @yamkin National Weather Service - NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard WWW.WRH.NOAA.GOV

I haven't seen the latest readings but I believe the early-Jan streamer was ruined by SSTs being 2˚c higher than normal in the Southern North Sea - of course a warmer sea is what we'd expect with Global Warming, but I get the impression they're particuarly high even within that context. Will have to wait and see if things improve next month. Hotter summers? A minimum of 20cms of snow on the ground for several weeks so I can use my snowboard is my thing

It's really telling to see how snow didn't settle along the South and East Coasts of England, Northern France or Belgium either. The SSTs in the English Channel and Southern North Sea clearly are a problem at the moment.

Latest satellite image from Aidan at the Met Office

I hope that areas that didn't see a covering (East Kent, South Essex), or just a patchy covering (here) earlier, might do better out of Round II. A few years ago on a certain other weather website I won't name, someone opined that it's rare in lowland Britain to see settling/accumulating snow in the heart of the day, defined as 11am - 3pm - it's hard to argue with this. Apart from the warm sector out to the East some of us were unlucky with the timing of the precipitation, perhaps darkness will be our friend tonight.