Chesil View

Thank you Tamara. I'd take Feb 1978 any day of the week.

The crazy Highs and lows people put themselves through in advance of a projected cold/snowy spell is farcical. There will be plenty more movement in tracks etc bearing in mind this is still essentially a week away. Don't wear yourselves out before it all gets here guys and gals. Today has seen major upgrades across most models and the ecm as it so often does beyond day 7 has plumped for an outlier as its deterministic run. We saw this going on through last winter as well it has a well known habit for doing this. Be it cold or mild.

My take this morning based purely on det runs. Gfs has moved somewhat towards ecm /ukmo in medium term. Gem best of the bunch so far for preserving longevity of cold spell. We await ecm but again with the caveat that none of the models will have exact positions of possible snow events nailed at this range.

Which just goes to show the huge range of options that are on the table regarding the movement of the lows later next week. Nobody should take getting snow or not getting snow for granted. Exact tracks if either of them actually approach our shore wont be sorted until 24 hour beforehand and certainly not at 240 hours beforehand. Not trying to pee on anybody's fireworks but just stating facts gleaned from more than 40 years of model watching.

Nice to look at but far too far out to put any accuracy on where the snow line will be at this stage.

Good post Catacol. It's easy for people to say thus has not worked or so .ych for that driver. Because they purely look at it from a snow I my backyard point of view but the overall global picture is very much as the drivers predicted. Local backyard stuff within that global pattern is down to nuance and if its snow you want a bit of luck. But the overall pattern is very much as was suggested.

Snowing very lightly in Wyke regis as I type.

Ecm shows a channel slider which could be very Interesting depending on the exact track.

More choices from the envelope of ensemble solutions this morning. Always worth remembering the models are on a global scale and as part of that the UK is on a micro scale. A couple of hundred miles error is on a global scale is nothing and within a reasonable margin of error but on a local scale is the difference between bitter cold and mild. The differences between the gfs 18z and 00z det runs in the medium term mean trusting those det runs past the initial retrogression is a pointless exercise.

Let it snow and frosty ground make very good points,when looking at some of our biggest snow events. You often actually need those milder( but still cold uppers) to bring the snow fall. I hark back to it often but the great South west blizzard of Feb 1978 came with uppers around minus 2 and produced drifts over 20 feet deep.

Bearing in mind the difference in the position of the low pressure to the southwest between 06z and 12z at the critical time I'm more inclined to think that's it just a ensemble choice rather than a trend to bring the mild air as far north into southern England. It is a high risk high reward game but the final dice are far from having been thrown on this one.

Light flurry of snow grains here at Wyke regis. Weymouth.

Indeed Dorsetbred. Those are the supplies that count.

That's always been the risk reward equation for the south from northerly sourced cold. The northerly source usually means dry for the south and therefore you need the risk of milder air nudging in to create snowfall chances. Short of a polar low or very active cold front like the 2004 thundersnow event. Northerlies on their own are not great for southern snow chances Edit. I see winter of 47 has said something similar above.

Indeed. But very strange that 20,000 years later the M4 corridor is still so often a demarcation line for snow events.

Models seem to be converging on a cold out come around day6/7 which is still too far out for comfort but definitely a step in the right direction. Snow chances will be governed by day to day developments much closer to the time if the reality of the general forecast pattern materialises. Still some scope for milder nudging air into the south on current output which could lead to high risk/high reward snow chances here but that would be highly dependent on nuances much closer to the time. Ideally now we want to see the models firming up or even upgrading the pattern on which they appear to be converging, over the next few days. That would decrease Nick Sussex's very sensible margin for error factor.

Indeed all nwp is cannon fodder at that range. Even the sainted ECM

Trying to look at the output at the moment can be a bit nerve shredding for southernsnow lovers at the best of times. A couple of days back, we had cleaner retrogression and northerly plunge of some note covering the whole UK. Now as Scott Ingham day nears the models seem a bit more reticent to go full on cold for the whole UK although the latest 06z does bring that back. I can only assume that the various variables are making this something of a knife edge scenario which can of course bring big rewards but can equally give snow starved southerners sod all. Maybe this is one of those instances where we literally won't really have the best idea until 24/48 hours before things align.

Indeed Weatherwizard just a couple of days ago we had cleaner retrogression and a cleaner southern jet taking lows into Europe. Now its much more messy. oh for the seventies and eighties when northern blocking was clean cut and trigger lows actually triggered something.

Indeed NWS .Scott Ingham day steadily being pushed back on the ECM.

Ecm.gfs ukmo and gem are roughly similar at 168 this morning. Beyond that as Carinthian said earlier various option are on the table. For me this is a step backwards from the clean evolutions of a couple of days back. Ecm in particular pushing the arrival of any real cold from the north back to day ten yet again and that is only for the north. It could have it right and the evolution to full on uk cold may just be a bit slower. Overall though I'm less convinced of a UK wide cold evolution this morning from a southerners point of view and you don't get much more southern than where i am overlooking Chesil beach. I'll reserve judgement for now as the ensembles are yet to be viewed and there are a lot of moving parts in the evolutions showing now compared to the cleaner evolutions across the models a couple of days ago.

Let's hope so.

But at what strength.

Looking purely at the 0z Det runs. Gfs and gem pick of the bunch at 240hr. ECM goes more Atlantic ridge route. Whether we're any nearer the final evolution this morning I'm not really sure.

Fair enough Booferking but in reality the hieghrs are more than enough to do what we want. The Atlantic is dead and the cold air is still coming south. Today's 12z actually holds out the hope of more snow for more people going forward than yesterday's