J-Man

Rain on the Northumberland coast at the moment, expecting it to change after sunset as the colder uppers move in. Hoping for a repeat of 2018!

If the steamers line up as they did in 2018 I'm in for something special again I reckon.

No snow on Northumberland coast this morning but very heavy frost made me think something had fallen when i first looked out the winter at 7am.

Still falling in amble, and looking at radar plenty more to come. Should give us a good covering by the morning.

View interesting read, thank you.

Welcome rain today in Northumberland sure the farmers will be pleased. My selfish side didnt want any rain as i was wanting the extremely dry weather to continue to see how dry everything became but my sensible side knows how important it was today considering the models are showing nothing else for next couple of weeks.

Today has definitely felt like the first day of spring, some decent heat in the sun, clear skies most of the day and not needed the heating on....long may it last.

What site is this off? Thanks.

Likewise in Northumberland, light snow powdery type that's lying and not melting off. Ground has dried up significantly which is a positive. Showers in North sea are building its like deja vu this.

Keep the faith, you'll get plenty through Saturday. Beast 1 started on the Tuesday with a bit of wet snow then look what happened from then onwards.

Rain here also. Not worried about this front dropping snow on us or not. Think we'll have enough north sea steamers setting up just like beast 1 to get our fill over next couple of days.

Slightly annoying that the media are referring to this as the mini beast. By the model output and snow potential it differs very little from beast 1, I think many average folk will be surprised by this over coming days. Its a beast its going to be pretty exceptional and something to remember again.

Slightly off topic but in terms of "sun strength" as we all know the further north we go the weaker the sun so here is a little info comparing sun height when beast 1 hit compared to beast 2. I've used dates of 1st and 17th March for comparison - Brighton 31.7 & 37.9 Birmingham 30.1 & 36.3 Hull 28.8 & 35.0 Newcastle 27.6 & 33.8 Dundee 26.1 & 32.3 Lerwick 22.4 & 28.6 So we can see that by the 17th the the sun strength Newcastle northwards is just marginally stronger than it was in the south during beast 1, so for these areas any snowfall shouldn't melt off that quickly, in fact we still have lying show in my coastal area of Northumberland from beast 1 where it drifted.

Thaw well and truly under way now. I would expect most of the flat lying snow to have gone by tomorrow morning and only where it has drifted or collected into large piles to remain for next few days.

Ice cover will reach its peak in next couple of weeks, maybe even this week due to temperatures being way above normal in certain parts of the arctic.

This was a couple of miles inland near Amble, taken yesterday. The photo doesnt do it justice yes those are trees nearly covered in snow, the drifting at some points really was 10 feet plus.

If you do head north I can guarantee you amazing drifts even at low level areas. Broomhill, Acklington, Warkworth to Alnmouth road unbelievable.

The good news is that following the SSW we got the high in the right place to give us an amazing few days of extreme winter weather. Now the SSW is still going to have a major impactover next few weeks, wouldn't it be great if it produced another high pressure that sets itself up to give us a southerly for Easter....anyone fancy 20c plus weather in next few weeks. Two extreme so close during March would even more memorable.

I think we'll see the shower intensity on the forecast change for Fri/Sat. If the wind dies down a bit as expected the showers should have more time to pick up moisture from the sea and also when they hit land wont be moving as fast above us so should drop more.

Signal has been down for a while now on BT mobile. Anyone else got issues?

It was and more coming, fingers crossed for you.

Ive never seen anything like it in 29 yrs of living here, reminds me of my consett youth.

Amble/Alnwick area is being pounded again tonight. Current whiteout conditions.

You can see the steamers lining up.

Met have forecast a quiet period until 8ish and then picking up again so we'll see what come in a couple of hours.