kmanmx

If Hirlam and Arpege are to be believed (and they've been on the money so far this morning, if a little behind) then the gap will close in the next hour or two, and heavier stuff will make it's way up into the gap over the course of the day.

Euro4 is supposedly better than Arpege on Hirlam.. Except when it's not, this is for 9am this morning. It's absolutely correct other than the huge mass of precipitation over southern england which it can't see

Aaaand kiss.!.. right over Leicester! i'll hold out the mistletoe even!

Shouldn't thin out, heavier stuff is heading your way at a steady rate.

Light to moderate snow here in Leicester, starting to affect the roads. Honestly I think MetOffice are flat out wrong to not have atleast a yellow warning out for Leicester and nearby areas. Doesn't look like this light snow will stop anytime soon and it is already starting to make driving conditions a bit slippy, nothing terrible, no complete traffic halts or anything, but definitely big increases to breaking distances, bound to be some accidents and the conditions will only worsen. Now my 'HYPE TIME!' prediction ...: I think Leicester/Notts/Birmingham/Coventry sort of area could get squeezed between the precipitation to the north and to the south, might lead to some interesting windy conditions and heavier snow than predicted ? especially as I believe this precipitation from the south I believe is part of a slightly warmer air mass, leading to a mixing of different energy systems...

Yep will be radar watching for sure. Anyway time to get ready for work and shoot off in the car.. I shall be back on here around 8am to catch up with the latest

This happens almost every year atleast once in Leicester haha. You get used to it. It is actually snowing here though with a strong wind. Pretty epic cold scenes outside, so I shouldn't kick up too much of a fuss, and it does seem like the snow should only get heavier as the morning progresses.

To be fair the rain is well north and east for this time than what even Arpege and Hirlam have it, and both those models show it gaining intensity as it gets further north (warmer air colliding with colder air ?). So fingers crossed still.

Almost wet myself laughing when I saw the weather warnings and Leicester in the triangle of boring doom lol. Precipitation does seem to be heading north, only light on the northern extent, but looks like it might get to Leicester. We'll see what happens. I mean it really is comical...

Arpege is still 12z on Meteociel ? edit: Oh yeah it's out for France, my bad.

Honestly every model seems to disagree with each other. Quite amazing considering it's about 12 to 18 hours away. Check the Hirlam for France and compare it to the French radar here http://www.weathercast.co.uk/radar/france.html Also compare the Arpege and GFS to the France radar. The precipitation is a good 50 to 100 miles further north than any of the models have it (though Hirlam is closest), and the precipitation in France extends right across the country, but none of the models are showing the precipitation in the east of France. So weird, they look like they're all doing a bad job to my eye. I think Chris Fawkes is right, this is going to arrive earlier than the models are predicting unless the first 50 miles of precipitation in France vanishes :\

Yeah still looking good on Hirlam overall, 18z has it arriving a little earlier, much of midlands covered by 1 or 2pm, but by 6pm it's considerably weaker and more west than 12z. Still great though, we get a good 6 hours of snow. Odd that Hirlam shifts it west and GFS brings it east, all the models are really struggling with this and disagreeing quite a lot.

Showers are actually heading towards Leicester.. beggars belief ! though looking at the intensity I think there is more water in my bedside cup than in those clouds Fortunately I find it legitimately funny these days, I actually have a bit of a chuckle to myself looking at the radar I am used to it now. Though I can't be too bitter, we did pretty decent in December, 5 to 10cm twice.

I've noticed we're in the only dry gap in the entire stretch of the UK...lol !

@weirpig Yeah interesting what Chris Fawkes had to say. Hopefully he's onto something.

Use the netweather radar. Much better. https://www.netweather.tv/live-weather/radar

I wonder if there is a tendency for showers to be pushed around cities by the tall buildings and slightly warmer air.. certainly seems like it when you witness the incredible precipitation gymnastics as they get towards your area

Yeah EURO4 no good. Very different to Arpege and Hirlam. Unfortunately out of all the high res models, I would put NMM and Euro4 ahead of arpege and hirlam, and the NMm and Euro4 are the ones showing very little progress into the midlands. Still you never know! fingers crossed that the Arpege/Hirlam have it right this time.

Yes GFS is further north and east... still, nothing like to the same extent as ARPEGE and HIRLAM, both of which are also 6 to 9 hours ahead of GFS in terms of where the precipitation is at X time. Very odd to see such huge discrpencies at a 24 hour timescale. EURO4 is going to be very interesting. Though, GFS basically has no capability in tracking the smaller showers and bands of rain. I mean, compare below. GFS for 6pm today: Actual radar: It gets the large bulk of PPN around north England and Scotland, but fails miserably everywhere else.

Yeah not quite sure about France. If I were to guess, their coastal waters are generally warmer ?. Warmer water gives storms and weather systems more strength, then as they approach the UK and hit colder waters, they lose strength ? Really not sure in Frances case, just an educated guess.

Generally the weather systems (especially North America) are much larger in scale. They have gained energy and strength over the entire pacific/atlantic ocean before hitting east coast america, which is why precipitation has no problem getting many hundreds of miles in land. I think their warmer waters feed the systems too which makes them bigger. As for France, I guess the same story, just they are generally affected by bigger systems ? though i'm not as sure. Ofcourse when it comes to snow, the rain has no issues getting into the midlands...

Just went for a 5 minute walk, extremely cold outside if you're walking into the headwind. Face went numb...

Yes 2010 was bad in our location. Didnt get anything really...

Wind is now a directly straight easterly, which isn't too good for my location as the showers are pretty non existent directly east. Still, had a few decent ones come up from the SE before the change of direction