Joe Levy

Well on friday I will be that much further east and north as I'm visiting my grandparents up in Castle Cary, so I may not be so lucky then haha but as for this current batch of showers, hopefully it will continue its pivot southwestwards! I think the shower activity is being aided by a very weak cold front just off the south coast, which has shown up on the most recent fax chart analysis for today. And no problem mate

The dew points are low enough that if the snow is very light, it won't settle because it sublimes (solid to gas/vapour) before or when it hits the ground. For settling snow, you need dew points that bit closer to zero unless the precipitation is very intense.

Yes well if it keeps intensifying then it might settle! Especially since there is so much cloud cover. We will have to see what happens when that band of precipitation to the east of us arrives

There seem to be two main areas of precipitation currently; one which covers the South coast of Devon and part of Cornwall, fringing further inland over Dartmoor and another area which is in a progressively intensifying band stretching from the West Midlands and as far as Dorset. Both are moving westwards, so it would be odd if anyone in the region did not see a single flake, unless they're not paying attention haha... EDIT. actually the one which is currently affecting Bristol is pivoting slightly by the looks of the radar, and it has intensified significantly as well it seems

Snowing very lightly in Exeter, fine powdery flakes

That's true! Mind you, I remember the late 90s and early 2000s when London got very little snow. Also, one snow event in the countryside of the South-West is worth 10 snow events in London, because it goes all slushy! In other words, London gets more snow, but it's not as nice!

I've literally seen one tiny snow flake today!! I'm going home to London for Easter on friday so I shall report back if they're having better luck currently than we are... I don't see how they could be any worse haha!

Yeah us lot in Exeter are owed a lot of snow, much like the rest of the region haha!

It means a cold weather alert, of which we do have a yellow one.

Since I am up writing a university essay analysing a song by Kirsty MacColl, I might as well wait here for the 0z... weather insanity at its best I wonder if the southward correction will continue? There is a very fine line between who gets snow, if any at all, and for those who want snow in the South, the concern is that the models are already showing snow at 5 days away - pray for not many more southerly corrections!

Yes I share your pain haha! Mind you, most of us from the Exe Valley westwards have not seen a single snowy event beyond seeing falling snow, so we're even further behind

I agree! The South of England has had comparatively little snow this winter, especially the further West you go! A direct hit for most, if not all of Southern England would be perfect to correct the imbalance, though if the models are already showing this now, will they still be showing it on the day? That is the dangerous question...

Let's all remember that heavy snow has hit the South-West before, so there is no reason why we should not get hit again. As some have pointed out, when we get hit, we get hit big-time! Besides, though we may not think of this way, at least we've had so many opportunities this winter, so that this friday/saturday is even a possibility! There are many winters when the entire of Southern England would have loved to even glimpse the charts that we are looking at today!

A very cultured response to what is a very wintry chart for this time of year! Perhaps it is gasping at the suspense of how far north the precipitation will move. It seems like this may be another of those low pressure systems where we don't know the answer until perhaps a day before it arrives!

But much much slower than on the previous run. Far from convincing for a return to mild, and in any case, it would still feel unpleasantly cool in the rain.

If option C occurs then it is far more likely that we will get snow than rain, even down here, since the dew points will be very low and the cold air will be embedded at lower levels, regardless of the upper air temperatures (though it really does help if the upper air temperatures are at -2 or below)

In any case, it's far too far away for us to be certain anyway! I reckon we won't have a clear idea until perhaps as little as 2/3 days before.

I reckon the cold will hold on longer than this morning's models are currently showing. The arrival of that large Atlantic low pressure system is 6 days away and given some models' tendency to overdo the size of low pressure systems and underestimate the strength of high pressure, it is seems fairly likely to me that the system will slide underneath the block.

Parts of South-West England have seen absolutely no snow, and most of us west of Taunton have seen very little at all. So we share your pain! The ECM looks good for Southern England snow, though it's mostly FI so not worth taking too seriously yet.

Yes I do agree with that, however since this week is forecast to be drier than average (as well as severely cold), that also has significant advantages. Regardless of temperature, it's dry weather we want to see in FI. And frozen precipitation is preferable, since it takes longer to re-enter the hydrological cycle. But I agree, extreme weather can be exciting, but also dangerous.

Very much in FI for our purposes, but this would bring heavy snowfall to much of South-Western and Southern England as it tracked eastwards, as both the uppers and dewpoints would still be sub zero by a fair margin

I agree - the one thing that has annoyed me the most is that many people on the model thread have pointed out mild charts in FI, when really all they show is mild and wet, which is exactly what we don't want. Until I see a mild and dry chart, I am in favour of cold and dry - plus some snow on the side haha

Yes definitely! And with the ensembles trending colder in FI lately, the length of this cold spell is far from certain, so the snow potential is most definitely there. Additionally, the weather will be drier which is even better for us lot!

The possibility of a snowy incursion at this timeframe has been mentioned before so it is certainly within the realms of possibility. The longer the cold weather lasts, the higher the chance of seeing snow is!

The GFS 12z run has corrected southward enough to give the South-West some potentially heavy snow on friday and saturday. However, this is bearing in mind that friday is a very long way away meteorologically, so take it with a pinch of salt... for now. Ian Fergusson did say a couple of days ago that Exeter had some concerns for precisely that time frame, but I am not sure if those concerns still stand, considering the standard model fluctuations.