heath

That easterly wind over the fell today is cold. Animals are very hungry despite air temperature of 7.

A bit of snow again today. It threatened to settle but now a thaw is under way.

Snow falling for the 4th day in 5, and the 5th in 8. Settling a little. Did not expect this. Lovely views of snow covered hills yesterday afternoon.

Slight frost this morning with it lingering all day in frost hollows. Sharp increase in snipe and pipits on the fell in the last couple of days. They do not believe in the frozen GFS runs for February.

Thunder at 18.20. Did not expect that. Hail in the heavy shower.

Drenching rain overnight with high winds. Some minor flooding. Nearly 10 C at 8.00 am. 4 C at 9.00 am!

chilly easterly here today, and the field and fell are fully frozen through the day although air temperatures are above freezing.

Covering of snow on the three peaks this morning, but dry and no frost here on the northern edge of the Forest of Bowland

My reading of that was the tops of South West Hills, not for example NYorks. Is that yours?

driving rain and 6 degrees, after that starry and rime frost start to last night. Portents of weather through to January I fear. May see the sun again sometime next month. The models thread seems to think that driving cold rain, a bit of sleet and wet snow on Ingleborough temporarily is exciting for the North West. With the land drains running since mid July and the ground saturated I fear the consequences of deep Iceland depressions as modelled. Mud and flood.

Finding the models for the next 10 days interesting. They look consistent for 8 days - a bit warmer, a bit wintry Thursday in the North West, high pressure, benign day or so, and then? GFS has moved to wet westerlies from ridging but now ECM is looking interesting at D9 and D10. Always interesting when options are available.

Snow is only at around 500m on the three peaks and then not much of it, but finally having a flurry here at 180m after rain showers through the day. Looks like there is more on the Lakes than the Dales.

So up to t144 GFS, GEM and ECM all offer a continuation of this pleasant winter weather (glorious here today - almost an ice day, full sun, a bit of snow on the three peaks). Beyond that more unsettled on GEM and ECM but tolerable. Rather hoping that the GFS route to snow from t192 (wet snow, sleet, windy - for 4 days! - we suffered Desmond and the Boxing Day storm in 2015) is not the way forward, but it does seem to underplay the Azores low and therefore the persistence of the high to the south west. So to my untrained eye ECM looks more likely up to t216. Good model watching at the moment trying to work out how the high may be removed (if at all).

Remarkable inter model and inter run consistency. This is unusual. The first sign of a change after the milder spell looks like a trough heading south over the UK per lo-res GFS. In the meantime enjoying the dry weather and the remaining snow on the hills.

Yesterday it was spring. First snow shower of the day already as I type.

Ground frost this evening - so just the one night with no frost. Warm spell!

Just half an inch here, but that does make 10 days this winter with some snow falling, even if it is only the second day with a proper covering.

quite lengthy spells of snow both yesterday and today, but always leaving just a smidgen. Difficult driving on the ice last night.

Nice covering this morning at sunrise

Surprise snow shower this far east. Not settled, but looked good in the wind. 4.2 C, but dewpoint 0.3C

Still a bit of snow lying around in the northern Pennines (Yorkshire/Durham border) today despite the temperature. As my wife's grandma used to say: "if there's snow on the floor there's bound to be more". Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Light snow between Pateley Bridge and home last night, A smidgen has settled here this morning - not enough to show white. 0 degrees at 7.00 a.m.

Both GFSP and ECM are consistent in shifting the Greenland vortex eastwards, and both at different times suggestions of cold air heading south just to the east of the UK. This indicates to me that the Azores ridge may struggle to maintain a benign influence in the second week in December when the eastward progression of the vortex stops. Would the lower heights over the western Med on the ECM allow a route for colder air from central Europe in due course? Any thoughts from the more knowledgeable?

I did raise the potential Atlantic trough on ECM earlier today, and the 12z shows this heading towards Iberia at t240. Does this help prevent the sinker that you refer to? 2 runs now.