Ben Sainsbury

Check out those rainfall rates at the core, approaching 100mm per hour!

Gust front like feature on the back edge now too! A beauty of lightning strike to my West. Rumble of Thunder too.

Just saw a distant flash from Keynsham too. Very dark base and beginning to see a decent structure on it too. To add strong inflow into storm on back-edge looks interesting.

Can definitely see a lowering under that base, not sure whether a funnel is forming or just scud.

Have a visual on the storm to the north over North Bristol/Gloucester, very dark base and can see hail failing but still difficult to see.

Just had 2 rumbles of thunder from this!

Really hoping this shower doesn't completely die before it reaches my area! Ahh!

To confirm from a personal perspective it is indeed sleeting here in Bristol. I think the SE are in a fantastic position for snow, with evening approaching, colder air undercutting quickly and readily turning to sleet and snow across SW, West Midlands and South Wales, all the best! Plus the front has a long way to go before reaching the SE could be in time for rush hour!

Whilst comparing the radar to the BBC graphics seems that the radar is an hour behind, could give us an extra bit of hope. Me personally I think the SE are in a fantastic position for snow, with evening approaching, colder air approaching and readily turning slightly in our area.

Good website to keep track of latest temps in area: http://www.xcweather.co.uk/ Where I'm situated (Bristol) 3'c right now, dewpoints still a little too high tho!

Latest Netweather radar update suggests what the majority of us have been saying, quite sleety here again tho mostly rain.

Although raining moderately heavy here, a few sleety bits too! Doesn't feel too cold yet tho!

Surely if the Met Office was confident enough that it was going to be a rain only event, even if there was a little snow then why would that even warrant a weather warning? Must be something they see that we don't?

There must be growing confidence regarding the snow event Thursday evening over Southern England. One of the best charts we've seen in a while down here! Beginning with rain at first I must add!

Using the "Dam" number and Pressure this is an approximate value in the chart. Sorry it is slightly blurry.

I must admit further good consistency between the ECM and GFS up to T120, and thereafter we have the low moving off the east coast of US. Given previous experiences of the GFS overdoing the deepness of low pressure systems, I'm wondering if we're going to see a prolonged period of cold settled weather, (A week or two) as the high doesn't seem in much worry to move. The setup is really not too disimilar to what we saw at the beginning of December. Forecasts at that point we're for an increasing cold end to December and look where it ended up. Be interesting it see how this setup begins to change over the next week or two.

Yeah GFS always overplays the possibility of snow, we can always hope!

Those looking for snow within the next few days, there is some hope for the night of New Years Day, the colder uppers edge their way in a little quicker and the front seems to slow its why southwards.

I don't think the accuracy of the model is determined by how far out they go, doesn't make much sense?

GFS 12z positioning of the High very nice, retrogressing west towards South Greenland, some big differences still.

I think the High sat in the Atlantic on the 6z has a better orientation allowing Northerly winds to take hold quicker, I think on the 12z this is going to take a little longer.

They don't want to put it out there so quickly as we know how unpredictable our weather is.

Good consistency up to T69 so far, -5 850hpa's over the majority of the UK at this point bar the SE.

As a matter of fact the GFS 18z hints at the front stalling during the early hours of 2nd Jan over Southern Britain.

Not to get any hopes here but I think we're forgetting about the "marginal" snow event that could take place on the evening of New Years Day. As a matter of fact this event has been consistently modelled over the last few days so definitely something we should keep on eye on. However marginal events like these are extremely difficult to predict even 3 days away. This event really depends on the timing, the sooner we can -5 850hpa temps the better, but then the closer we move towards night the colder the temps. Something to keep an eye on anyway. The first set show the 850hpa temps and precipitation type on GFS 6z: This next set shows the 850hpa temps and precipitation type on GFS (P) 6z: And as bobbydog has just indicated the GFS has support from GEFS members too. What timing to post at the same time! aha