snowblind

Nice and sunny here at the moment.

Must be very dry air at the mo. Temp below freezing but no frost.

Last time we had, what I'd call, a proper blizzard down here was January 1982.

I'm quite a way North East of you near Colchester and I'm just in the warning zone for 1 to 4 cms. I'm not overly hopeful but you never know and it wouldn't take too much of an upgrade to get more of our region in the firing line. Here's hoping.

just rain according to the current observations on the meto website. 5c and peeing down. Same in Guernsey. Sounds hideous.

Light snow on and off for about an hour has left a dusting in this part of North Essex. Temp -0.4 D.P -1

Temp 0.6 D.P. -1

It's funny isn't it how the models had this idea a few days ago, dropped it and are now coming back to it. Let's hope the trend continues. This seems to happen quite a lot.

The warning out for tomorrow night for 1 to 3 cms over 100 meters seems a bit underwhelming though.

I'm hoping that those temps are being slightly over estimated and will be modified down a couple of degrees nearer the time so this should increase out chances of snow. But I agree expectations from looking at the model thread and watching the forecasts don't really tally.

Some of the models look quite promising, apparently, but the forecasts aren't too inspiring at the mo, just a bit too warm. But things chance quickly I've had uninspiring forecasts before and ended up with snow, so I would say wait and see what happens. Seems like Wednesday might be our best chance for any snow.

That's what I don't get. Are we misinterpreting the models? Are the forecasts over estimating the max temps, but not sure why they would do that? Or is it because the surface flow is coming over a realtively warm North Sea modifying the surface temps.. Whatever it is it doesn't look very conducive to any significant settling snow.

Well just watched a really depressing week ahead forecast on news 24. Mention of perhaps a bit of wintriness over the hills for us on Tuesday. Temps of 4 and 5 all week. Showers on Sunday and Monday of rain, perhaps sleet. And getting less cold by the end of the week as the winds turn westerly. According to that not really a cold spell at all just slightly chilly and damp. The fronts from the west getting killed before they get very far into the country and providing very little precipitation even out west. Not cold enough for anything coming from the east to fall as snow either. Not sure what's happened to the possible significant snow for Sunday night mentioned yesterday by Helen Willets. Doesn't really seem to match with what's showing in the models so I'm hoping it's just rubbish bbc forecasting, and there will be more interesting weather next week than they are suggesting.

In my experience the models tend to underestimate the strength of the block and will vary run to run anyway. With that in mind if it looks as if the block will retreat towards the end of the week I would expect this to get pushed back a few days. So I would say the cold spell will probably last into next weekend and possibly beyond even though the models might be thinking slightly differently atm.

Didn't Heathrow invest in a load of really expensive snow clearing equipment after the 2010 fiasco, which they haven't really needed since?

I'm not Steve but I'll give it ago. I think your question was about what the 850 temps would translate to on the ground. Roughly speaking -10 850s would probably be just above freezing, maybe 1c. Anything below -10 and you'd be looking at ice days. There are other factors involved, which I don't really understand, but this gives a rough idea. sorry this was in response to a post from TheBeastFromTheEast on the previous page. Not sure what happened to the quote.....

The text forecast for here for Sunday has gone from Rain, preceded by snow, on Wednesday, to rain perhaps preceded by snow, yesterday, to just rain today. The automated forecast is also showing rain for here tomorrow with a max temp of 3c. Arghhhh!

That seems to be showing sleet, with snow over the Peak District to me.

Colder than expected here too. Got down to -1.3. still below freezing now.

Been snowing heavily here for the last hour or so. Temp down to 0.8c. Slight slushy covering on grass and cars.

Cold and frosty here -1.6c. nice and sunny though no fog.

Seems strange to look out at the garden and see green instead of white. The snowmans body has survived quite well although he lost his head yesterday! Only been upto to 4.6c briefly this afternoon but it did feel much warmer than that outside as there was plenty of sunshine. Looks like a cold one tonight, temp already down to 0.5.

Been a strange day temperature wise here. Lowest temp I recorded was -4.2c at 9.15 this morning. Been below freezing all day managed -0.3c briefly at 2:15 this afternoon. Then plumeted to -1.5c at 4:45 and now up to 0.4c, first time above freezing all day. snowcover mostly intact despite the sunshine all day and the pavements and roads very hazardous. All the ice and snow will go tomorrow with rising temps and rain.....

I've done an official measurement on the wheelie bin and we have 5cms here at the moment. Still snowing but lighter than before. I've studied the warning maps on the met office site and reckon I'm just in the Amber warning zone so maybe a bit more to come, hopefully.

Still snowing here but easing off a bit. Reckon there is about 6cms coving everything so far. Temp now 0c down from 1.9 at 645 - the weather station has revived itself. I have been out and built a modest snowman with my 5 year old daughter. So we a both happy Its the most snow she's seen. It's great snow for snowballs and snowmen!