kar999

Very light rain here earlier. ... no more than a touch of drizzle but rain all the same.

Maybe the bad weather has encouraged the scumbag low life theives to nick 4X4's... (although reports indicate they have been doing it more and more recently.) From local South Staffs Rural Watch..... It's not mine but please ring Police on 123 if you spot it "A Land Rover Defender was stolen from outside a house in Moor lane (Pattingham) last night, it is bright orange re no M651 MJF, they think they pushed it down the street, then started it. "

Definite thaw throughout the day here. Nearest weather station (Cosford) showing 0ºC and Shawbury showing +1ºC http://skylinkweathe...?stationid=EGWC Can't notice much impact on the grass but tarmaced/paved areas and cars have absorbed some heat and have lost much of their covering.

Our only way out is down a 200 yard farm track which had a 2-3 foot deep drift down its whole length on the leaward Eastern edge of the field. We only had about 8cm level lying but you can see that it had blown off the fields and billowed into a nice long drift. The good farmer's tractor soon shifted it so we can get out now... though I have driven down the field before now! Slight thaw setting in now.

There's been some widely differing depths reported on here today so I thought I'd post tonights Midlands Today (6:30) Official BBC/Met Office snow depths. Obviously drifts, elevations and some localisation would give rise to possible greater depths but the major variations would most likely be caused by the infamous "Over Exageration Man-Inches " syndrome! Those depths fit in nicely with the 8-9cm depth I roughly measured on our picnic bench.

Just shy of 9cms (c.3.5 inches) here and snizzled out about 2.30pm. It's about the the same as we had in Dec 10, Plenty of deeper drifts in the fileds, which the dogs loved, especially the youngest you'd not seen snow before.

New thread..... There's been advance warnings out for a couple of days, including a METO Amber alert, for 5-10cm and widespread disruption to traffic across most of the UK especially the Midlands . I fail to see how much more of an advance warning people needed. .

Yep.... good point.... I just have a past vivid image of an SLR going nowhere fast sideways up a slight slope with the the back wheels doing about 8000rpm!!

I cant remember the year but it might have been 2004 having read the post above. We had snow then freezing rain then a rapid freeze all in the space of a couple of hours late afternnon.The gritters had been out but a lot of it a got washed away and they couldnt get back out later due to the gridlock, I left Cradley at 4:30 as was still stuck in Dudley at 10pm. The Himley Road was like glass,

Dont even think about driving in and around the conurbations tomorrow. All it takes is a couple of bell ends with rear wheel drive Mercs or BM's, revving the rollocks off the car, to lose it on the slightest of gradients and it will be gridlock!!! I remember leaving Cradley Heath at 4:30pm a few years back and not getting home till 11pm.

I voted to keep the split . I'm no expert but would suggest that the West Midlands climate is more likely to be affected by Westerlies and the Cheshire Gap than the East Midlands. Where you draw the line is always going to be debateable and there will always be borderline cases.

They usually air on the side of caution so I would have expected to seethem indicating more of a possibility of snow but temps were up at +5C also. Oh well time will tell. As always for our region I'll expect rain and any snow will be an added bonus.

Looks like someone has been killed... swept away in Flash Flooding in Ludlow. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18624085 Man has died after he was swept away in flood water in Shropshire. His body was found in a stream in Bitterley near Ludlow as rain caused widespread flash flooding across parts of the West Midlands. A storm which began in Wales earlier grew stronger as it headed into England with roads quickly becoming flooded. West Mercia Police said the man who died in Shropshire is believed to be in his 60s. A spokesman said the man's body was discovered in a stream just before midday following a search involving the police helicopter and fire rescue boat. His family have been told and the coroner has been informed.

Damn... Missed the alerts from Aurora UK... for some reason they only came in by email rather than Text and I was already zzzzzzzzzzzzz.. Good show in N Ireland and Cumbria... as posted above

Scandinavian Aurora webcams showing some nice live displays. EDIT: Between the clouds! http://pl.wehrle.ws/plcams2.htm Anyone in Northern Britain could still be in with a chance as the wind speed is still c 700km/sec and most importantly the Bz is still tilted South ... you just need a big fan to blow away the cloud cover.... fogged out here all day with temperatures no higher than 10c... so much for the warmest day of the year! As Shuggs says keep your eye on the links in the resources thread.

Amber alert received earlier this afternoon from Aurorawatch UK. The fog and then thin cloud has never shifted all day here and set to return so fat chance of seeing anything even if the storming levels increase.

Pete, I think there is a lot of science regarding the sun and solar cycles, and the interaction between earthquakes and indeed the weather that even the "expert" scientists do not understand. We all witnessed the "experts" moving predictions for the end of the last solar miniumum and cycle 24. There again maybe the Mayans are right and it'll all be irrelevant whether the scientists or the armchair experts are proved correct. I haven't bothered saving up for Christmas 2012 as a precaution! http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif

Yep I was watching the Scandinavian aurora webcams, I posted the link last night, and even though it was around midnight the moonshine made it look like daytime.

I was never in any doubt we wouldn't.... it's not Dec 2012 yet!! Yep I had the email alert at 07.21 for Aurorawatch UK this morning.

The Midlands, and even Southern England, is not beyond the reach of seeing the Northern Lights but it needs a reasonably strong Geomagnetic storm and favourable visibility i.e lack of cloud and preferably not a full moon! Low green glows on the northern horizon are more frequent rather than full blown overhead displays at our latitudes. Edit:: Looks like I'm clouded out for the rest of the night irrespective of whether there is an increase in activity later. Activity seems pretty slack now anyway. Time for some zzzzz's rather than skywatching.... again!

Clouded out here ... thin enough to see the moon though it and some breaks but not looking good... damn.

At least Yahoo News is not painting a doomsday scenario with this realistic and useful news item on this "potentia' event. A refreshing change from some of the Armagedon hype by the media and some over excited thread postings. http://uk.news.yahoo...ern-lights.html.

Link to Scandinavian Aurora webcams... though it looks like there is a lot of cloud and moonlight pollution. http://pl.wehrle.ws/plcams2.htm

Well it's a ham sandwich and a Danish Pastry for me persoanlly!! Lets hope the skies remain clear... if only that damn moon wasn't full!!

There is only minor activity at the moment. Tomorrow night should be the big CME impact with more chance of activity at lower latitudes..