Chris Smith

It looked pretty sleety as I drove through CLS earlier. Other side of Sacriston it's still pretty snowy, although last night's snow is looking a bit melty now.

Chucking it down here, NW of Durham - big fat flakes.

LOL! That amber area is basically the Yorkshire Dales, Cumbrian Fells and North Pennines. Well, duh! I'm at 105m here. I'm expecting blobby rain/snow mix with limited accumulation, but Consett of course will be cut off for days

Would it be accurate to say that recent weeks have been dominated by Bartlett Highs? The current iteration might be better described as a Euro High, but current charts show some adjustment this week, such that we end up with a broad high ridging from the Azores right across to the Balkans; which is a classic BH setup, is it not?

We had a flurry. Lucky I didn't blink, otherwise I'd have missed it. I'm bored of winter now. Roll on summer!

Well. Is it me, or was today's weather totally misrepresented in the forecast? I was expecting wind and rain. Instead, it's a glorious day - breezy, sunny and not cold. WTF?

Season's greetings folks. It's damn mild down here in the South. Wet, windy and wild too. Back in The North tomorrow.

You're welcome!

Y'know, I've always been told that freezing rain is pretty rare in the UK. But honestly, I think I've seen more of this kind of breakdown in recent years than ever before; more so than the snow->rain transition. I remember being in Minneapolis during November in the 80s. It was -9c and pouring with rain. That was my first time seeing "proper" freezing rain, and it's a sight to behold.

I'm flying driving south for the hols. If you believe the wailing and rending of garments in the Padded Room (what I like to call the model chasing room) it's going to be mild and wild down there. Plenty of winter to come after though, I'm sure.

Pretty underwhelming breakdown. Half an hour of freezing drizzle. Meh.

Sunday just looks filthy. Cold raw wind, sleety wetness. Ugh!

It's certainly milder today. The last couple of days were ice days simply because there was no wind and the valley here just filled with cold air overnight and that hung around through the day. Now there's a breeze, and the inversion is gone, so it's above zero, though probably only just. Extended cold spells are like that though - some days it's proper cold, other days not so much. Looking forward to Monday though. As I said before, +12c is going to feel tropical.

Looks like you need to be near the coast to get any showers at all, but high enough up to retain the cold; so basically, on the NYMs.

We just had a decent 5 minute flurry, and there's nothing whatsoever showing on the radar here . One of those cloudless flurries - the sun just keeps on shining.

That 13c on Monday is going to feel like the tropics!

Still time to take a quick drive up to the Lion Inn at Blakey, in the hope of a snow-in!

ngl - all this sunshine is doing wonders for my SAD. Feeling quite chipper tbh.

Gizzy, sounds like you need cheering up. Back in 2018, I too lived in Guisborough. Here is the view from my living room window, Feb 2018. 20180228_212952.mp4

Some winters are remembered for single cold weather events - BFTE being a recent example, January 1987 an older one. Other winters are remembered because they had long periods of cold weather; Dec/Jan 1978, Dec 1981, Feb 1986, Dec 2010 etc. When I think back to 1978, the cold would regularly get contaminated with milder air, but it always came back (until that time it didn't, obvs). You'd get an occlusion from the west for example, that would start as snow, turn sleety and nasty, and by the next day, we'd be back to frosty days again. Perhaps we're in one of those winters? Feb 1986 was cold right through. It's hardly ever remembered because it was like this current weather - cold and dry, there was hardly any snow at all.

The fog cleared here, but the sun has already set behind the bank opposite (220m to my 105m) so I'm betting it'll reform real soon now.

You could get some excellent drone footage flying over that. Would look awesome.

Funny how the cold spell is suddenly so much more newsworthy now it's snowed in the SE.

The valleys NW of Durham were all full of freezing fog earlier. Driving up to the tops you broke out of it but there was another layer of low cloud above the fog. Never seen that before. Mostly around -3/-4 despite the cloud.

I had some errands to run today, and was glad of the winter tyres on my mountain bike (tungsten carbide studs). They're damn slow and heavy, but pretty much a Get Out of Jail Free card from the fracture clinic. The back lanes were like glass out of the sun.