Looks like the same here, though very light. Whatever's falling is falling like snow does rather than rain here. Very small drops/flakes.
Doesn't make sense though as it's 6c at the moment.
This is another reason why this winter is worse than 2013/14. At least in 2013/14 there was nothing to get our hopes up and I even saw falling snow 2 times. This winter there have been so many potential snow events and not one have them has materialized. 5 minutes of very light snow after 12 hours of cold rain is all I've seen this winter.
I just know Liverpool will miss out, I'm having flashbacks of January
Met Office seem confident of snow, but BBC shows rain all day with a temperature of 5c.
The worst one ever, narrowly beats 2013/14 to the title. In 2013/14 I remember 2 instances of snow falling. This year a few flakes after 12 hours of very cold rain and that was it. Very little dry weather too apart from the last few days.
Messed up my grammar. I meant on the 23rd we had plus 5 uppers over England, yet 2 days later precipitation was falling as snow here in a northwesterly wind.
Both ECM and GFS show good potential for blocking to our Northeast at day 9. Problem is there is a real lack of cold air over Scandi and Russia at the moment thanks to a huge HP bringing Southerly winds to those regions.
Yep I remember Christmas 2004, Northwesterly just 2 days after plus 5 uppers were over the UK, brought snow accumulations to my area easily. North-westerlies are useless now unless you're inland and on higher ground.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/33/207/2015/angeo-33-207-2015.pdf
This might be interesting. In the last 3 winters we've had ENSO neutral and El Nino, we've had W-QBO and E-QBO we've had low snow advance and high snow advance yet all winters have been mild with a positive NAO throughout. Maybe the solar cycle has a larger than expected part to play in winter. This paper shows the North Atlantic is the main area affected by solar activity and during solar cycle peak the Azores High/Icelandic lows are strengthened.
Surely we should want that low to develop and go above that Azores high to continue the slider conveyor belt. All mid-latitude blocking does is provide an escape route for high-latitude blocking to leave the high latitudes.
Funny how GFS has gone from being the villain to hero
Blame the last 3 years for that. Failed spectacularly with the infamous December 2012 non-cold spell and has shown cold spells in the last 2 winters only to be corrected by the GFS. Now that I've said that I bet the roles will be reversed for this event in the next few days and ECM will be right, sod's law.
In this case it looks like the Azores High ridging North results in splitting the Atlantic lows. Ideally we would prefer the undercut to extend from the Atlantic into France/Germany uninterrupted. We already have the block to our North East, don't need the Azores getting involved.
Has to be asked did the SSW give us that weak ridge of High pressure? Very reminiscent of the pattern after the January 2013 SSW. Shame the Azores high is so desperate to join in after the first slider.
Could be looking at both La Nina and an E-QBO going into next winter.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/extreme-weather/will-la-nina-take-el-ninos-place-in-the-pacific-we-examine/62812/http://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/news/articles/extreme-weather/will-la-nina-take-el-ninos-place-in-the-pacific-we-examine/62812/