Chris W

I am unable to post it from my mobile but the Met Office fax chart has the central pressure of the low down to around 936mb on Christmas Eve and very close to Scotland. Exactly what track it takes remains to be seen, but that is quite extraordinary.

I am staying in Epsom tonight with a friend and saw two flashes of lightning with accompanying thunder - the first peal of thunder was very sharp and rapid following the flash. I do believe that is the first time I have ever seen lightning in December.

Christmas Eve, midnight from the GFS 00z - little time to analyse but certainly an interesting Christmas morning!

(Edit - sorry, this is a quote of Summer Sun's post which I seem to have messed up a little) (Quote) The Op which has the most extreme solution (End quote) My word, that would be phenomenal in terms of meteorological interest but best if it does not happen. I like stormy, but that would not be a nice Christmas for many. My instinct is that it is over-egged, but will still pack a punch. After that I see the GFS hints at a northerly toppler - anyone's thoughts on the Christmas-New Year interval for some bona fide wintry weather?

Hi all. Hope you are all well and that this weekend's wind/rain is not posing too many problems. I will be returning to the UK and landing on Thursday at 3pm GMT, at which time the GFS would welcome me with this: That being a snapshot the jet does look set to dive quite far south whilst remaining strong with the PV edging over the north west of the UK. Very likely (potentially stating the rather obvious) to my mind to be very windy and wet, and potentially wintry. Certainly not dull in the lead-up to Christmas Day.

I shall be back in the UK from mid December for three weeks and am hoping for some good cold to welcome me back. Some decent-looking charts at the moment suggesting possible blocking which would be rather nice, but we will see! More typical colder weather and darker nights would be more normal than walking along in shorts and flip flops wondering why there are Christmas decs going up in the street... In the meantime (off-topic) I can enjoy the NZ summer building, even though "winter" and spring have thrown up plenty of sunshine and good temperatures. Hope you're all doing well.

NZ has been firmly in the grip of the roaring forties this month, after strong isolated windstorms in August and particularly September (in the latter Christchurch received 130kph gusts and Mt Hutt summit 250kph). Those storms brought down many trees and power lines inland. This month has been themed by high pressure to the north and lows tracking over the South Island bringing warm, gusty northwesterlies to Otago and Canterbury (particularly inland) as well as strong winds to Wellington. Yesterday's 'Norwester' pushed the temperature to nearly 30C here in Christchurch and the strongest gusts towards 100kph - I am not sure what the peak gust was but during the night it was quite powerful. The west coast gets a great deal of rain in these setups, contributing to its average of 7000mm per year. Safe to say it's wet and thundery over there at the moment. The week or so ahead? More northwesterlies and westerlies then a hint of high pressure possibly taking over the South Island.

Just dropping in for a visit - now in NZ so no more Cheshire storm shield for me, but what will Canterbury throw up? Anyhow, you guys may be interested in this: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8895389/Silent-heat-lightning-illuminates-night-sky

Doesn't look like it to me:

+240 Hours:

A personal look ahead to April 4th when I will be flying overseas. I will be a mildie for that day alone as I wouldn't mind my flight from Heathrow taking off on time! On a less personal note the end of the GFS runs have been hinting at mild for a little while though it has been pushed back repeatedly. If that high sinks SE it could finally be the tipping point to more typical spring conditions but we will see.

In case people haven't seen tomorrow's warnings: And for good measure IMBY:

Updated Met Office warnings for general interest:

Looks like the GFS returns to blocking and an easterly in FI, but a milder one. Re: the snow projections for Cheshire earlier, despite the Clwydian snow shadow we do suffer I can see a decent snowfall being possible. In Jan it made it to us under what I would call a slightly less promising situation - one thing is for sure though, I will be telling my colleague in Cerrigydrudion that she might want to work from home tomorrow!

Yes to live for a year at least. Only been there for a month in June 2011 and that was their 3rd warmest winter on record, so I can't comment too much! Generally Christchurch (where I'm going) looks about the same as southern England/northern France for its weather.

Interesting that Ian F was mentioning Easter weekend earlier today. Here's the ECM at 240 hours: How can these charts keep getting better and better for cold, still? Rhetorical question. I leave the country in 2 weeks for New Zealand, and won't see spring til September - but will you lot over here?

-15 at Richmond in March, yes perhaps a little overdone!

True, I only really have time to view op runs. A snowy Easter would be a rare event.

Interesting, I haven't seen what the other models are showing but the GFS has mild air already in situ around that time:

No weather warning doesn't mean no heavy snow, it just may not be considered sufficient for a warning.

The cold really does push back against the low on Thursday/Friday on the GFS 18z making it stall and then retreat. I really thought that was it for the winter, that the Atlantic/mild would finally win after this weekend, but it appears not yet.

There looks a possibility of heavy snow Thursday from my reading of the GFS 00z as the low engages cold uppers over the midlands northwards: I did see the GFS indicating possible high pressure and more springlike temperatures over us in one of its runs yesteday, in FI admittedly but I think that some signs are beginning to show. Otherwise if blocking and dominant easterly winds remain we do at least have a chance of remaining on the drier side - Saturday's rain demonstrated how high the water table still is with large puddles quickly reappearing after a few dry weeks.

A real battleground in FI on the GFS 06z, this output is really quite staggering for late March.

At work, same weather as everyone else it seems - beautiful blue skies one minute then heavy horizontal snow the next (interspersed with lighter snow drifting down). Teperature -1.8 (was -2.8 not long ago) with a winchill of -7 (was -9). Not much lying but it's not melting easily. Nearest weather station provided the figures: http://www.wundergro...ast?query=croft This is a really remarkable day for March, I don't think I've seen the likes of it before - a different sort of day to March 2006 in Dundee when we had heavy snow allthrough a Saturday night into Sunday.

GFS going through cold phases and then ending up with a bit of a Spanish plume right at the end, from a brief glance I've just had.