Buzz

It's good that the rain will wet the soil and encourage new growth, the problem is that there's a hell of a lot of dead grass and plants around so as soon as the dry and sunny weather returns in a few days that dead grass, etc will quickly dry out and be a fire hazard once again.

It's raining! At last! A few days of this and then hopefully back to the nice, dry and sunny weather. for the first time in ages I guess I'll be mowing my lawn in a couple of weeks.

There's a noticeable drop in temperature as the cloud and rain approaches which would explain why the storm activity is dying down.

I can report that the Carmarthen snow shield is still fully functional.

For my area I've known it much colder (also cold spells that lasted for much longer) and also with far more snow. However this was the first time that I've seen drifting snow in this area for a long time - even though my area only got around 3 inches there's some very good drifts about. But, generally speaking, it was very average compared to some of the excellent blizzards that I've experienced over the past few decades.

Well I've seen snow in the south at the end of April before so you never know ..........

Nice one, I've been feeding the wild birds too. A shallow bowl of water is also useful (although you'll need to remove the ice from time to time).

But if you warn people and nothing happens then they'll start to ignore further warnings. It's a very delicate balancing act that's made even more difficult when the prognosis is extremely uncertain - the snow from the current cold snap was very difficult to forecast with a lot of highly complicated and 'out of the ordinary' factors mixed in. Your current attacks on the Met Office and certain forecasters are totally unfair and unjustified.

Check out HIRLAM: https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/hirlam.php More snow developing during the afternoon.

Despite the low surface temperatures (still around -2 C in my neck of the woods) has the upper air warmed a lot or become more laden with moisture? I ask this because I still have a very strong wind here which should be causing the existing lying snow to drift, yet it's not blowing about at all (plenty of drifts formed overnight of course). There's been no freezing rain either and the snow still seems powdery. Apologies if this is vaguely off topic but given the experts who visit this thread it seemed like the best place to ask.

I'm afraid that will never happen UNLESS we start to get regular, severe, prolonged cold spells.

It should do: " Even if the snow turned to freezing rain, it would almost certainly turn back to extremely heavy snow " from this post: but it will perhaps vary depending on the location.

Huge thanks, and the same to you.

And that was based on what the charts were showing. We've still not had much and as the main band isn't due for a few hours we still don't know if we'll be in a relatively "dry" zone. We'll see in a few hours.

To those of you saying that there's not much snow, etc - the main band isn't here yet and isn't due for a few hours. Be grateful that you've got a little extra as a taster.

Very much so, here's the video:

They should find shelter in the hedgerows but sadly this will be the death of some of them. Keep putting out suitable food and breaking the ice on the water bowls, that's all that I've been doing and all that anyone can reasonably do.

The main precipitation isn't due for a few hours yet, these bouts of snizzle are but tiny tasters of what some people will eventually get.

Still snizzling here. It's fascinating watching the dry snow being swirled around by the wind and leaving circles or semi-circles of slightly thicker snow on my driveway.

Not necessarily, the main band of snow hasn't developed yet (that's due to develop in the Channel in one or two hours - then we'll see if we're in the dry ('"less snow"). zone).

Snizzle coming down fast now, finally enough to start to accumulate on all surfaces. Temp is -3.3 C On the teaspoon scale I believe I may have enough for a few mouthfuls.

Still a few flakes in the wind here as it's been all morning, very on and off though. Temp is -3.6 C In summary - sodding cold, grey, windy and generally uninspiring.

It's even slightly tear-shaped - it's crying about the lack of snow.

"Bloody Easterners, taking all our snow" ............ etc.

Kind of. Thanks for the explanations but I'm still a bit puzzled - the west of Wales doesn't look like getting that much snow. However past easterlies have always given a good amount in the same area from frontal systems approaching from the west or south west. Presumably the main factor causing the relative lack of western Wales snow today/tomorrow is that the fronts are approaching from the south ? (Then of course the mountains do their bit as you have described).