James Maidstone

What if it has it right? It will be like that old timer in the pub telling smuggly "I kept telling you this would happen, but you wouldn't listen. You got yourself all excited and now what, -disappointment, that's what you've got. I told you to trust me and not underestimate me"

Surely though, unless you are in Scotland, those 850s are just too warm, even then it would be marginal away from higher ground? I am fairly amateur in all of this but a 0° 850 is going to bring nothing but rain unless you are at significant elevantion?

It certainly gives them some bandwidth to play with with regards to eventualities!

There never was going to be anything special from this for Kent, there wasn't even a yellow weather warning. As always the devil is in the detail for these events. Looking out the window this morning it's good to see the Downs looking white though

In Maidstone, we had 35mm rain in 45 mins. In a lull, but big cell developed in M20/M26/M25 triangle and heading here.

Please no talk of weather on a weather forum?

The GFS 6z looks interesting for tomorrow morning (9am) for the SE: When you consider the GFS had by far the best handle on last nights events too

ITV weather today were talking about "Thunderstorms across England last night"... Why do they bother?!

Severe Convective Weather & Storms Forecast - Netweather.tv WWW.NETWEATHER.TV Storm forecast just issued

Maidstone has been a bit of a slow burner in this cold snap, but this evening has been a nice suprise. Looks like there could be more to come too. Nice to see the radar picking up towards us rather than just disappating over the downs. I didn't expect tonight, assumed we would just see continued thaw tomorrow once the sun gets up so nice that it is going to be a winter wonderland in the morning!

I think there is other stuff coming into play here such as: - the underlying warmth of the ground from last week which is still not that cold - solar heating in the day from when the clouds clear in the afternoon. I think even under colder uppers such as minus 20 you can still get partial melting in the day due to solar activity. Someone please correct me if I am wrong?

To be fair, they called this spell..... Along with the 30 other blizzards this year. It is a bit like betting on every horse in the Grand National and then claiming a winner!

Moderate snow in Maidstone during the last hour, probably the heaviest it has been during this spell. Looks like a potential streamer being set up for a few hours. minus 2.4 here... Roads around the estate like an ice rink, there were a couple of people actually ice skating earlier on the roads (in proper ice skating boots) - impressive!

thing is, it has been cold enough from 7 or 8am, it the 2m temp has been below freezing, however the ground isn't, as well as my weather station I have a thermometer on the patio, that is reading 0.5 Celsius even though the 2m temperature is -1 and the DP -2. The warmth of the ground from last week has meant that snow hasn't settled much on tarmacked areas and even on grass/mud the amounts have been compromised. The actual conditions (bar the late start) have been fine. Either way in Maidstone we have had enough for people to build snowmen and go sledging. Probably about 5cm on grass areas, maybe we will get a more comprehensive covering tonight, but a fair amount of the precipitation is getting 'rinsed' or split by the Downs..

Within the space of a few minutes all just settled on pavements and road here, transitioned in about 5 mins! Marginality here in Maidstone, but the right side of marginal. Guessing the ground finally got cold enough as air temp is still 0.0

DP -0.6 and Temperature 0.0 here in Maidstone. Settling on grass and cars but not on the roads. Guessing it will gradually ice over as temperature drops below freezing as the day goes on. Ground would have been relatively warm before today which is part of the issue. Moderate snow for couple of hours here now. Other than the late start the Met Office have been spot on for the amber warning area, don't forget the amber warning is until tomorrow and could well be extended.. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Almost there now in Maidstone with the DP at 0.4 and the temp 1.3. Just need the precip to shift west by a few miles. God this has been hard work. Wind still battering the house

Quite a few on here that if football fans would be the "sack the manager" after 2 bad results!

System filling in, pivoting and shifting west. Temps dropping. Give it time ladies and gents.

After a couple of hours of stalling and even rising temps in Maidstone now dropping relatively quickly (exactly in line with met office forecast tbh) temp 1.8. Dp 1.2 As someone said in a previous post about GFS having it slightly further north and west. That would tie in with the slower transition. Things an hour or two slow but I think all will be good.

Dew Points across the south east are starting to trend closer to zero looking at the chart. I think the colder air cutting in is just a little bit slower than expected. The 3am update the met office put out was pretty ballsy if this was going to be a bust. "Heavy and persistent snow"...

Look at the met office radar, it is more extensive than netweather for example. The precipitation is matching the general warning area. Admittedly the decriptive forecast updated does make it sound like snowmaggedon more than the radar looks atm. It is early days though. Judge the outcome at 9pm Monday evening not 3am Sunday morning!

Maidstone 230ft ASL temp 1.9 DP 1.3 Other readings im Maidstone are coming up with lower dew points which would tie in with the red radar returns which is a positive. Gradually dropping but a painfully slow process at this hour! Looking at the Dutch radar everything seems to be playing out as planned, hopefully all will be white around here in a couple of hours!

Maidstone 230ft ASL temp 3.5 DP 2.9. Wind howling

Maidstone, dropping away fairly quickly now.. 4.7 with 4.3 DP. Windy outside with driving rain