Wiltshireweatherwatcher

Thaw well underway now. A big thanks to everyone whose posted informative and amusing posts and pictures over these past few days. It’s been fun. Right off out to enjoy it before it goes. At this rate it will pretty much be gone by the end of the day. Wasn’t expecting the thaw to begin until around lunchtime.

I have to hand it to Louise Leah that I thought it was very brave to show the weather system that we are now seeing on last Thursday’s weather for the week ahead but here we are. My we’ve come along way with forecasting the weather even when it doesn’t always quite go to plan.

Indeed, starting to think that the amber warning is more for the prospect of freezing rain rather than heavy snow. Hope I’m wrong.

A different kind of knocker ?

Yes Ian was rushed tonight. The producers of Points West obviously felt a story about knitted knockers (see Points West FB page) deserved more airtime than the forecast for the potential of quite severe weather in our region over the next few days. As always, Ian was a true professional and did his best to fit as much in as he could in such a short space of time rushing through tomorrow’s forecast to get to Thursday. Sadly this happens all too often on Points West with Ian given little time to deliver his forecast; even at times of severe weather. I like Points West but sometimes the program can be a waste of half an hour apart from the weather forecast.

I think GFS has been on the gin!

Yellow warning for snow now placed for the Eastern side of the country only: bit.ly/1g3zeBH NK was spot on with talk of downgrades. It was only ever marginal to begin with.

Those in the SE don't give up hope yet. BBC Points West weatherman Ian Fergusson just mentioned storms could come up from France tomorrow night along with what's expected ahead of the occluded front further west. Gonna be all on the night as it so often is with thunderstorms.

Hmmm...Nowcast for Bath 5c and it's rain.

Latest Tweet from Matt Hugo: Apart from the far W of the UK, as I highlight here (http://www.theaa.com/emergency ) this chart has snow written all over it! http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/brack2.gif

No you are not, seen it many times.

A telling tweet from Liam Dutton to Ian F: Liam:You've got a nightmare of a forecast tonight... Don't envy you! Ian:My thoughts EXACTLY Liam...!!!!

Great tweet from Liam Dutton that shows just how hard it is for weather forecasters right now in predicting whether you get rain or snow. Very much a nowcast event for many in our region tonight.

Ian F is doing a spot of nowcasting on this one:

Really looking like a wake up and see what's out there sort of weather situation as its becoming clear there is a lot of uncertainty.

The fact that the UKMO have not upgraded their yellow warning of yesterday to an amber warning today speaks of downgrade. Yes we will see some snow but it isn't going to be of the show stopping variety sadly. Hope I'm wrong.

Which doesn't make much sense with them talking about milder conditions taking hold mid month onwards, oh well.

That late afternoon rain over the region was a pest. As Andy says that will freeze tonight making for some potentially icy stretches on roads and pavements. Ian F confirmed on Points West this evening that milder weather is on the way after this week. Going to see some very low overnight temperatures first through the rest of this week by the looks of things.

After just reading the latest medium and long range met office forecasts, it is starting to look like that could be it for any meaningful snowfall for this winter. Oh well lets bring on spring. I'm getting bored of this cold weather now if no snow is going to come of it.

Been raining in Bath for the past hour or so after a moderate covering of snow this afternoon. Good to finally see some fairly decent snow this winter even though it's unlikely to survive the rain that's now falling onto it. Here's hoping there's more to come.

Just starting to snow (v light) in the Bath area.

Murrayfield so no problems with the match being affected by weather

Agreed, some people in other parts of the country that are expecting a dumping might be disappointed. I think the pressure is still too high.

The good old 'M4 corridor', a forecaster's favourite that one. Yeah I remember that non snow event well, I think that it was around 4 years ago. Mr Anguin was most confident of this snow event taking place that I went to bed that night expecting to wake up to a white out the next day. Nothing.

Don't give up hope on this one just yet everyone. The story may have been written by the various models that the West Country in the main will miss out but it is still be acted out. As mullender83 so rightly points out, a small shift westwards on the track of this weather system or it stalling could make a big difference. How many times over the years has the weather made a complete fool out of all those expensive super computers that are so heavily relied on to tell us the weather? I do also wonder whether these models are slightly underestimating the lower than forecasted temperatures which once again are dropping like a stone tonight. Odds on that it will be colder than last night. There won't be as much sunshine tomorrow to warm things up a bit once the cloud rolls in. Another minor point is the barometer is still reading 1040mb and isn't moving. What bearing such a high pressure reading has on what is forecast to take place tomorrow I don't know, just seems very high to me for ppn to come falling out of the sky be it rain or snow. Going to have to fall rather quickly in the next few hours I think. Is this really a done deal? Even some canny forecasters are not saying this is a certainty? We'll know in 24 hours time that much we do know.