Snowmoon

Very heavy snow here at the moment which is adding to the large amount of snow still remaining from Tuesday. Ironically, the Met Office has no warning out whatsoever for Worcestershire!

It's constantly reinforced in this forum that anything beyond the next 3 days or so is to be regarded as FI, so any predictions made a week ago would fall into that category. It's also been said that snow amounts and locations can change within hours of "now", so I think many people have been basing their expectations on forecasts made during past 24 hours. Yesterday, the BBC forecasts were suggesting widespread light snow throughout the day right across the southern half of England and Wales, with significant amounts in a number of places. Today, they've downgraded that to being little more than snow flurries here and there with the possibility of something more significant overnight on some hills. I believe that's the reason for the consternation. As others have commented, I feel there's a gap in these forums, when there's uncertainty in what might happen, where what models are saying regarding the weather in the near/immediate future is either ignored or lost in a sea of FI posts. It would also be interesting to see more posts within a day or two of the event comparing what actually happened to what the models predicted would happen, thus reviewing which models called it best. There's an understandable concentration on what's to come rather than what's been but, as far as models are concerned, analysing their performance is arguably more important than their future predictions. Perhaps the forum structure might be reviewed to compartmentalise things more, although I appreciate more forums would mean more work for the mods. Just my two penneth! <_<

BBC seem to have toned down their forecasts big-time since yesterday. Last night they were talking about 10-15cm in a number of places (particularly the far south-east corner), whilst today they've changed it to merely light snow in a few places and nothing except for possibly rain in the far south-east! Doesn't look good for us in the Midlands really in terms of the heavier snow we might have been expecting given yesterday's forecasts, although they're still talking about a possibility of more significant falls on hills overnight Sunday into Monday.

Unless they're busy updating still, the Met Office have now removed the snow warning for the whole of the Midlands (everywhere apart from the South-East and East Anglia in fact) for Sunday. The former, in the same way that heavy rain doesn't feature dinner plate-sized raindrops! :lol:

The centre of the low pressure area just off the Norfolk coast at present seems to be tracking south-westwards at the moment, according to the METO radar, so that will presumably bring showers further inland as it progresses.

Dorset's in the current "red zone", but I can't see how anything's going to arrive there this evening based on the radar progressions. It's hard to see the more westerly band of precip that's currently moving along the Channel getting up towards London either, so maybe the METO might issue a further revision (or removal) of the red zone later??

Noted, but there's no real sign of it happening yet looking at the radar, although I suppose there are slight signs of the precip to the east of Cardiff/Bristol moving north-eastwards. I can't see how any of that is going to come back westwards any time soon, but we'll all just have to wait and see what ends up where!

I think it's supposed to be the band that's currently over Wales and the Irish Sea that's going to move south-east and reach the Midlands later. It certainly doesn't seem to be moving very quickly though, so the BBC forecasts I've seen lately seem to be out on their timing as far as the Midlands is concerned, unless some snow is going to develop out of nowhere, although something seems to be brewing west of Birmingham going by the last couple of METO radar images.

I'm first to admit that I'm not at all skilled in interpreting these charts, but isn't it saying that the units are in millimeteres and so the amount of snow is therefore 32mm => 3.2cm => ~1.25 inches?

There's still about an inch lying here, although it's thawing due to the temperature and light rain.

I've seen the Malverns specifically mentioned in national BBC forecasts over the past 24 hours for the first time that I can remember, simply because of the potential for there to be inches of snow. As it is, there's less than an inch here, although I appreciate there are plenty of people around the country who can still only dream of that! :o

All the BBC forecasts I've seen yesterday and today have been predicting heavy snow in the West Midlands! For example, have a look at this: "Snow hits parts of the UK with heavier falls to come" "BBC weather forecaster Peter Gibbs predicted Wales and the West Midlands would suffer "blizzard conditions" later on Tuesday due to the strong winds." I'm not criticising the forecasters, as snow is a difficult thing to call correctly, but please let's reflect what they've been saying accurately!

Blizzards - what's that chart showing please?

Heaviest snow yet here now - it will settle if it continues like this.

Snow is generally more heavy here now, but no big flakes (yet) as some in the South-West and Wales forums have reported. Still not heavy enough to settle yet though. Hopefully the best is yet to come because, if there isn't much snow here at this altitude, I fear that those nearer Birmingham might not get what they're expecting. If the progress of this is going to stall, as many are saying, I guess the crucial thing is how far it gets before that happens.

It's now more snow than rain here, but the snowflakes are still small so the snow isn't heavy enough to start covering the road (not yet at least!). The main band of precip is still taking it's time to get here though.

Nothing but sleet here so far (Malvern, 840ft ASL), but the organised area of precip is not far away now, so we'll soon find out what we're destined for in this neck of the woods. I cancelled some plans today based on the forecasts for this area over the past few days (which included the first name-check for the Malverns on a national BBC forecast that I can recall), so will be rather annoyed if the predicted snow doesn't happen.

The MO radar suggests that the precip is in 2 bands. It may be the more southerly band that they're expecting most of the snow to come out of. Just started to drizzle here in Malvern (840ft ASL). Don't know what the temp is, but there was no overnight frost and it's fairly breezy.

Snow has stopped here in Malvern now, as expected. Looks like that's it for the night in this neck of the woods, unless the more showery precip now in south-west Wales somehow makes it this far east, which looks unlikely.

They could at least update the warnings once they know it's happening though! Too late for those already in the area in question, but still useful for those considering travelling to that area.

Up to approx 1.5" new lying snow here in Malvern (840ft ASL) and still snowing, although I would imagine it will stop very soon. Good luck to all those further north, I hope it gives you something worthwhile before fizzling out.

Use something decent then! Malvern, Worcs 840ft ASL

The snow is heavier here now and readily settling - undoing the effects of the earlier thaw!

Front edge of the precip has just reached here and it's started off as light snow (at least at this height), which is gradually getting heavier. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. Prior to this, today had seen the first thawing of note since the snow on Saturday night.

Yep, no westerly movement at all on that so bang goes my theory! Boing, boing!