Jackfrost

Met Office outlook has just updated: Further rain, sleet or snow on Saturday, becoming lighter and patchier. Sunday, mostly dry but cloudy after freezing fog lifts. More snow and strong winds on Monday. Cold and icy. Much to look forward to it seems. And with the cloud and low tempteratures forecast, there'll be little if any melting of lying snow followed by a potential top up on Monday. Can't help but wonder what kind of depths we could be looking at on Tuesday.

From Tony's guide: "For Saturday, still further snow to come would you believe, as the trough gradually dies a death over the south-west. Wales and the SW Midlands looking like being hardest hit on Saturday, the snow depths piling up even further, and with the 36 hours or more of snow modelled in these areas, we are looking at a foot of level snow quite widely, and drifts many times this that would block roads and railways." It sounds like a carbon copy of what I've heard of the blizzard of January 198... infact, I'm not going to say it. We all know what I'm talking about. What do you think, Tony? Most significant snow event for many years at least.

Not going to happen. As Crackpot said, there's nothing in the charts to suggest it, and I've never ever seen it happen with an Atlantic system.

Caerphilly will definitely see heavy snow along with the rest of the Valleys. If you're seeing sleet on the BBC five day outlook, fear not because Caerphilly's forecast is taken from Cardiff, and even Cardiff is likely to see a period of heavy snow rather than sleet.

Snowing lightly here, third time since this cold spell started. Can't complain. I'm sure my sympathy is the last thing you want, but it must be torture for those in west and southwest Wales who are expecting rain. You're all welcome to camp in my back garden. Or something.

Hope we didn't all miss this end of Ian's forecast! "Our attention turns to Monday as we could be looking at a repeat performance." Wow. I'm not one to ramp - I much prefer to have my feet on the ground - but I think we could be heading into the most notable snowfalls we've seen for many years, perhaps surpassing the December 17th 2010 and definitely more severe than February 7/8 2007.

1 mm of rain = 1 cm of snow. So that 20, perhaps 30 mm of rain would equal out at 20-30 cm of snow.

Yeah, this time we're all looking lucky in the Southeast. Quite rare to see Cardiff and Newport in amber warnings in my experience.

I used to live in Dowlais, just next to the Heads of the Valleys so snow was always guaranteed in these situations. I live further down the valley now but we still do okay. The border between snow/rain always seems to be around Pontypridd.

Bafan, have you seen the pictures of Tredegar after the 1982 blizzard? Absolutely incredible. I've posted them several times on here. Tredegar also holds the record maximum snow depth for a town in the UK.

Gosh. Southeast Wales is beyond a doubt the place to be if this verifies. Saturday: Tuesday:

Well, the Forest of Dean runs along the border with Wales, so it's probably safe to include inland areas of Southeast Wales in that "heaviest snow" comment due to the hilly terrain in these parts.

On the subject of TV forecasts, am I the only one who finds ITV Wales forecasts a bit on the depressing side? The presenters can never do enough to emphasise how dangerous/miserable/inconvenient any cold weather is, with use of phases such as "unfortunately", "don't venture out unless you absolutely have to" and "bitterly, bitterly cold", all said with a very glum face and a tragic kind of voice. Watching Derek is a positive joy in comparison. Ian's forecast for the Southwest is very exciting. Snow beginning in the early hours of Friday and still going strong at 22:00, while the three day outlook shows snow through until Sunday. I worry that it won't quite pan out like that, but it's fun to see a forecaster being so gutsy.

Latest runs roughly sticking to the plan, with the front pushing into the block and stalling across the south and west of the UK, giving moderate to heavy snow on Friday; the weekend is still a little uncertain but slightly milder air could push across us before the block wins out. The cold is slightly further East than before, but not far enough to worry us and it's likely to be shifted west again. The consistency with each run regarding this snow event is reassuring. One will not be amused if it all goes tits up.

Can vouch for that. I'm right on the Merthyr/Caerphilly border. The main roads here are generally fine, while they're apparently treacherous over in Treharris (and all over Merthyr). Damn council.

With the rotation of the low it seems likely that the remainder of the trough will swing across South Wales, keeping this heavy snow going for another hour or so. Very heavy here, ground is white.

Turning to heavy snow up here. Settling too.

Rain. Damn.

It's supposed to be veering South, but due to the rotation of the low in the North Sea it seems to be heading towards Southeast Wales, although that's likely to change later in the night.

This developing streamer has December 17th 2010 written all over it. Perhaps the best snowfall event I can remember (I wasn't around in '82 and don't remember much of 95/96). Shame it isn't going to pan out like that, but still.

Northern Ireland can get large snowfalls when the north wind blows, no doubt about it, as can Southwest England. Let's not forget that historically, it's been Wales and Southwest England that have seen many of the worst blizzards to have ever hit the UK.

There's too much negativity on here, argh! Many of us saw settling snow last night - it snowed for 6 hours or so here - and there's a little more possible tonight. Just be thankful that we don't live in the South or Southwest of England or Northern Ireland.

Snow started falling here.

Where are you exactly, WeatherGirl? If you're in the Aber Valley you're just over the mountain from me, and there's a dusting of snow on the mountain between here and Senghenydd (383m). Just like in a lot of places, it's bone dry here despite precipitation supposedly being overhead.

As expected, the cold air has shifted slightly westwards in the latest run.