summer blizzard

Was a little fearful given that Sowerby Bridge aint that far away however it's picked up if anything and the roads are now starting to cover. Rush hour tonight will be awful if there's no change to rain or the gritters don't get a move on.

Aye. I think i'm at 90-100m.

Still snow here in HD4. If anything it's settling more now than earlier.

There is no mild sector, it's just that the March sun is too strong to allow the temperature to stop from rising.

Damn it, all i have is a dusting and it's too light to really add to it. I miss my old height.

Case in point for folk worrying. The low's center passed Manchester Airport and winds went from SE to W inside an hour, there was a 2C temperature drop. Once the low passes over, north or underneath of us all that precipitation between Liverpool and Carslile will sink south and deliver overnight.

Are you still recording SE winds? Manchester Airport dropped ~2C in the last hour or so between reports simply because the low passes. 4C with SE winds at 22:50, 2C with W winds at 23:50. Your inland with height, it's hard to see how you'll fail to see snow.

Still looking good in my opinion. The center is clear and elongating albeit still moving north east (and probably further north than forecast actually). Once we get south and west of the center then we should start to see a change to snow. Any temperature reports?

GFS is once again stonking here but does suggest two issues. 1) Height - My postcode average is a little north of 100m and forecast heavy snow (13cm in a 3 hour block won't be reality but it suggests a stonking preciptation rate) while LS1 is nearer sea level and forecast an all rain event. 2) Moisture/sea - Although the event looks potentially brilliant for 9-12 hours once the flow turns to the north east it suggests rain which i can only assume is an indicator of the sea dragging in moisture. Personally i'm not totally sold by the turn to the NE causing a snow to rain event simply because this far west (Huddersfield) we almost never struggle in that regard and the sea should be around its coldest. Now if there's an upper air issue then that's a concern potentially but i've not seen the detailed charts. Height wise it could be correct and that's always a danger. If your in West and South Yorkshire i'd get the snow shovel and deicer ready above 100m, if your in North and East Yorkshire enjoy it while it lasts but it will be slush by rush hour in the morning.

Annoyingly it looks like Huddersfield has been too far south to benefit due to the w-e movement for the most part, this bit we are finally getting now (thunder too) probably won't last too long. Tomorrow is looking epic though in terms of forecast intensity. Good to see it snowing now at any rate.

Update.. 1.2: 0.9C 3.4: 2.1C

While it won't be anywhere near the actual total i have to say that i'm being forecast some staggering snowfall rates from the GFS for Thursday night in the 3 hour blocks. Gone from 7cm for 3 hour blocks to 10cm for this 12z run. While i doubt the total on the ground will exceed 10cm it looks likely that in terms of intensity i'll probably see my heaviest snowfall since the attacking fronts of Jan 13 which were perfect here (16cm confirmed over the 10 days but likely exceeded 20cm since i never got to measure the final front).

Thursday is frontal, Wednesday is westerly and showery. For us, i'd say the order of preference is easterly showers>frontal>northerly>westerly.

Thursday night starting to look potentially very good.

I'll go bang on average.. 6.6C.

What was the CET for the 10th-20th period. It's interesting that such a mild winter may end up producing three thirds of a month with reasonably cold CET values.

Biggest thing to take away from the models for me is that there's not a drop of rain forecast until Tuesday. That will have been 9 days.

With the cold air now starting to undercut in the west of your region can you confirm any dew point drops even if it's still too warm for you with the moist flow. Continued reports would be much appreciated by those of us further east.

It's not moving that fast. Th cold air is already undercutting in a line from Blackpool to Newcastle (see the wind direction becoming more westerly) and they still have precipitation. Even if we get 3 hours out of it, that's still pretty good.

Just looking around at it seems that snow was confirmed in Ireland and the Isle Of Man down to about 100m. We just need the front to stay at its current pace.

In terms of temperatures/dew points we seem to no higher than forecast which is good and the cold air is undercutting in a line from Edinburgh to Wales at the moment. I'm still relatively optimistic although there's a chance i'm too far west for this one as the colder dew points seem to be hanging on better further east.

Optimistic myself. For anybody on xcweather you can compare the surface flow (winds) and pressure to see that we do have a bit of a convergent flow at the surface which is why the front slows. We can also see that dew points are even now in Yorkshire not far off zero ahead of the front. Once the cold air behind flanks the front then i feel very optimistic that we will see snow and the GFS expects this from about 3pm (although the Met Office warnings suggest anytime from dawn). Look at Ireland to see what's happening with the temperature and wind direction. Despite the whole of Ireland being under rain you can see that the cold air is already undercutting behind and temperatures even with a flow off the Atlantic have dropped back 4-5C compared to eastern Ireland. The key for tomorrow's event is to hope that our surface temperature (currently around 4C) remains relatively low under the initial rain.

I suspect it's too little too late given atmospheric lag (especially if the absolute value of the east Pacific is more important than relative difference) however it does (assuming that it yields a -AO all year rather than meaning different in spring/summer than it does in winter) strengthen the argument of a cold April which is backed up by analogues.

Winter 06 basically had high pressure for the entirety. Feb 13 for the most part (around 20 days without rain). Feb's 09 and 12 were broadly anti-cyclonic.

Had another look (excluding the west/east based component) and if we take weakening springs with at least one Q2 monthly value of +1 or more then we get.. 1958: Be, Be, Av 1983: Av, Be, Av 1998: Ab, Be, Ab 2005: Av, Av, Av 2010: Av, Av, Be Strongest signals are for March and May to be within 1C of the 1981-2010 average but April to be below.