Harve

Hopefully the minor roads will be unblocked soon, as I'm supposed to be returning to England to visit family tomorrow and the last few miles of the journey are going to be difficult...

Oh damnit, so I did. I don't even remember doing that - big mistake!

Any members in the sparsely populated south Ayrshire/Dumfries and Galloway area? There seems to have been plenty of snow falling there, perhaps rivalling that over Cumbria and North-East Wales.

Maximum -1c so far in Buxton... a very late ice day.

Derbyshire Dales - Icicles, drifts and overhanging bulges of snow from the roofs all in one shot. edit: only 200m or so, I believe.

I'm back home on Tuesday morning and I'm really hoping the snow sticks around for then...

The swing in winter and summer weather from 2009 and 2007 respectively is pretty remarkable, but I find the overall warmth from 1988-2007 (for winters) and the 90's and early-mid 00's (for summers) to be just as remarkable, and that came to an end fairly rapidly. We've yet to see a notably cool summer month according to the CET - in the bottom 10% of months, i.e. to be expected every 10 years for each month - despite plenty of near/below average ones, Perhaps the lack of summer sea ice is making that difficult, even if synoptics mean our months are still slightly chilly and rather wet?

Indeed. The wind direction means that the snow is going to accumulate in the hollows which catch plenty of sun, but I wonder how long snow patches could last all the same.

I'm looking outside my window to an inch of snow in central Glasgow, of all places, right now? Obviously far more impressive in North Wales and the Midlands though!

Snow is melting here and it's actually a sleet/snow mixture now.

It seems to me as if every month seems to become your least favourite month and that the weather simply varies between dire and slightly less dire for you. Short term memory?

Ah right, I wasn't reading properly - I did wonder why the months were divided as they are.The rolling annual CET should surely be plummeting as we take record warm CET days out of the equation and replace it with near-record cold.

I've noticed that the Met Office have given Buxton a "moderate" UV index of 4 for Saturday - during very poor visibility, heavy snow, easterly gales and a temperature of -2c.

Had synoptics that caused the -12c uppers occurred in early January, not only would those uppers be several degrees lower, but the warmer seas would mean that convection would be absolutely insane.

January 2010 for snowdrifts and an 'alpine feel'. December 2010 for snow depths and bitter cold. April 2011 for moderately warm, sunny and settled weather. Months like July 2006 were like this but 8c warmer... 8c too warm by my book. May 2010 for all four seasons in one month (if mid-March to mid-April were a month, that would be better) August 2004 for a tropical monsoon feel (even know I barely remember it) Apologies for the 2010 dominance.

There was also April 2012, which was 0.7c below the 61-90 average at 7.2c

My 4.3c, I think it was, is looking very good!

In all fairness, the wintry showers are fairly sparse, whether or not the few that have occurred are heavy. There was also an amber warning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnpBKP8Nz0 I don't see much wrong with this forecast given its unpredictability. Perhaps snow accumulations were slightly underestimated but it was a situation where a 50 mile change made a huge amount of difference. There didn't seem to be widespread level snow depths of over 10cm, but yes, the drifting and wind-chill were a cause for concern and hence the amber warning.

I'd be surprised if we could sustain a CET below 4c. I imagine that most Marches that managed a CET of below 4c would've been below 3c or even 2c right now, as it's difficult to hold against the tide of seasonal warming.

A showery, sunny and cool summer sounds perfect to me. A mix between June 2011 (cool, showery, sunny, not excessively wet) with occasional spells of June 2010 (warmish, dry and sunny)?

Making me homesick!

Glen Ogle got to -3.7c at 2pm this afternoon, but regardless, it's at 560m so I believe the Met Office don't count it.

Also, the English record for the lowest Maximum temperature is -3.3c in Buxton in 1942, which seems very beatable at some point to me: I'm surprised it's not lower considering Dartmoor managed a -10c maximum in February.

I believe the blizzard at the end (!) of April 1981 recorded ice days in a select few places.

The BBC are going for maxes tomorrow of ~-3c across some towns in the north of the region online, pretty notable for March!