Jackfrost

That's incredibly bad luck. I know it's easy to get despondent but we tend to do much better for snow in South Wales than in Southern England, including the Southeast, and perhaps the Midlands.

Wow, that must have you on tenterhooks when you hear the "snow north of the M4" line. Yeah, it's still heavy. Nice little covering now. I'll take a picture shortly. 2010, really? What about January 2013? We had one major fall followed by two significant falls that left approaching a foot in places by the end of the spell.

Got no reason to disbelieve you, Jay. Where are you, exactly? North Cardiff I'm guessing, Lisvane, Thornhill, Cyncoed?

Snow in Cardiff, wintry mix in Upper Boat, snow in Nelson. You've got a microclimate, worldairgroup! The San Francisco of South Wales.

Gah! That doesn't fill me with joy and makes me half-expect it to turn to sleet/rain here within the next hour or so. Pretty big flakes coming down now which, if my father is to be believed, indicates rising temperature.

Really Jay? I wouldn't be surprised to see a little something in Cardiff. Not as much as places inland, but it's still a possibility. I'm not sure if that's a streamer setting up in the Channel or whether the showers have temporarily aligned in that way, but there's a definite long line of pokey showers moving towards the South Wales coast which largely appear to be forming out at sea before intensifying as they head towards us. Interesting. If that is a streamer and if the PPN stays as snow, certain places could end up with an appreciable fall. Still going strong here.

Heavy snow up here and not at all wet like the snow a few days ago. Lovely.

Here is comes! Settling on impact.

First flakes falling here, should be with you worldairgroup and Clair within the next fifteen-twenty minutes.

I want one of these: Not one of these: That really does look like snow at Merthyr, but it couldn't be by virtue of there being hardly any snow at Dowlais Top and Dowlais Top being much higher than that cam. I think it's just the light on the grass. Sadly. Merthyr is now down for three/four hours of heavy snow/heavy snow showers, though.

I wonder if there's a chance of a Bristol Channel streamer setting up tonight, a la 21st December 2009. There's a whole clump of showers heading towards that general area and the winds seem to be veering more Westerly.

I miss the orange lampposts which I can barely remember from my childhood. Here in Caerphilly they're almost extinct, replaced by yellow and increasingly the silvery LED types. The orange added such an amazing glow to the snow.

This bodes very well indeed for those of us further East! So much for settling snow only above 200m, eh Tony? Also, some of those showers are turning very pokey indeed as they hit Pembrokeshire.

Bitterly cold here. I'm around 75% certain that snow is guaranteed in the form of showers in most areas away from the coast tonight.

The nightly 6-10 day forecast has updated. I'm not sure what to think of it. Definitely one of those occasions when you have to read between the lines. http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/30842988

I admit I got swept up in all the excitement and unrestrained joy over the output last night. Shame on me!

There's no denying that the models have downgraded a little, but I suspect much of the whining and hissy fits are based on the models not showing what certain posters want in their own neck of the woods.

Don't be too disheartened: slider lows often correct Southwest, and that is just Steve Murr's opinion, as respected as he is. At this stage, most other sources don't support the northeasterly track of the slider as Steve does. That said, while it's great to get excited over a potential heavy snow event, we need to be prepared for every possible outcome, especially at this stage when the models are subject to change.

Eat less Weetabix. Sorry

Hi Chris, good to see another local in the Wales forum. I'll put my neck on the line here (and I'm a relative novice) but as things stand at the moment our chances of seeing falling snow in this area seem around 80%, settling snow around 79%, a significant event around 50-55% and a severe event around 10%. Those percentages reflect only the first of the slider lows and not any further systems that could add to whatever lying snow we have.

I'm quite excited too. I'm rarely one to get carried away with snow prospects - I'm usually very sceptical - but IF the current synoptics were in place right now I could easily see the usual, most prone places in these kind of setups getting a very significant fall. A January 2013-style event is easily achievable. So let's hope little changes between now and early next week!

Turning increasingly to snow here. I can see the flakes splattering against my window in an absolute howler of a gale.

Yes, Pete. I'm certain we all will, and potentially worse. If it's happened before, short of it being something highly exceptional (ie. ball lightning or an F5 tornado), it's highly likely to happen again.

Where in Ponty are you, Andy? I've noticed several times that you've seen snow while here, further up the valley, it's been rain or sleet at best. The difference in altitude is to blame, obviously.

December 18th 2010 would be a candidate, yes, given that we saw well over a foot here. But to be fair to Derek, I don't think any of the forecasts could have foreseen the narrow, intense streamer which set up that day. But my point still stands: our regional forecasters prefer to downplay prospective snow and, I've noticed, don't go into as much detail in the general synoptic patterns as certain regional forecasters *ahem*.