Lord Grogon

WeatherPro app showing a gradual increase in temperatures today. Peaking at an impressive 14C, at the even more impressive time of midnight! That doesn’t happen very often.

Somebody made an interesting comment last night. Usually for these big storms that track NW up the W side of the country, where you are a considerable distance from the centre of the low, to get big gusts, you are dependent on squall type events. It was pointed out that the rain band that was quite showery, had "spread out" and merged into a more general front type setup. Hence without the squalls, the big gusts didn't happen so much. So for most of central and southern Britain, the max gusts were less than shown on the models. Assumption being of course that models didn't pick up the change in rain type, hence they overestimated the winds somewhat. Further North of course, you pick up the tighter winds nearer the low centre, plus possible sting jet so stronger winds. Models seems to do just fine here, which is obviously where it matters the most! Can't explain it anymore scientifically than this. But for somebody who has been watching storms for 35 years, it does make sense.

Agreed. Inland 70mph+ is pretty rare the southern half of the UK. Even storm Eunice which was billed as the strongest storm for 10 years only hit 69mph in London.

It reminds me a bit of Storm Ciara. That had an amber warning over the whole of England and Wales. Same concerns as well. A huge wind field with uncertainly up the last moment where the windiest bit would be. In the end there was a small wave that passed through generating higher winds in parts of C England.

Wow, a warning for the whole country. Impressive. On a side point though, the Met Office really need to improve their warnings webpage. It's so fiddly and confusing.

Not quite. These are gusts in kph. So if I'm reading correctly it's 70mph gusts along the coast. 50-60mph inland. With some inland locations poss a bit higher. A nasty event, but nothing ridiculously extreme in terms of windspeed. What's actually more impressive is the size of the windfield as it impacts all of England and Wales. Cetainly, you'd have the whole country under at least a yellow warning. Storm Henk this ceratainly isn't...

Anything from a rabbit to a skipping lamb judging by these pics.

Seems to be a bit of a reversal. Trend until yesterday was to move the low pressure centres northwards, hence restricting the severest winds to Scotland. But the GFS has now reintroduced secondary systems further south. Given GFS tendancy to overdo low pressures, be interesting to see whether the trend is followed by the other models. Oddly enough, I like windstorms. Earliest memories of "exciting" weather I have were of the big storms in 1987 and 1990. Just a shame of course they cause such havoc!

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Feb 86 the imfamous "too cold for snow" month?

“Don’t worry too much about snow chances. Small features will always pop up at short notice that the models won’t yet see”. I must have read this comment a thousand times in some form over the last few days. So what has changed? I know people may be a bit grumpy that the models are firming up on an end to this cold spell. But there seems to have been a complete collapse in excitement for the next week. Are people simply overreacting to Wednesdays low no longer going in the desired direction. Or is there something else?

God it’s hard work in the MAD thread. They are very good at collectively talking up the doom and gloom. You’d think we were looking at a week of Tutg rain. Think I need a stiff drink..

Snownado....

We got 5 inches of laying snow here. Only time I have seen more in 24 years of living in London was the infamous Feb 2009 Thames streamer event. It gave more snow than both Dec 2010 or the 2018 BTFE. Point worth making. It's almost impossible to get nationwide snow cover off a single event. It just doesn't happen. Hardly ever does with rain, let alone snow. Weather systems will hit specific areas. Some will get lucky, others won't. Dec 22 was jackpot for us, but we were very lucky. There's a famous photo from Jan 2010 that showed the whole country blanketed white. I recall at the time how dramatic it seemed given how rare snow had been during most of the 2000's. But that happened because the country had been stuck in a cold spell since mid-Dec 2009. Nearly a month of snow events had occured in the month leading up to that photo.

So my non-technical take on what will happen. Based on nothing more than my direct experiences, plus reading this site. 1) It will get much colder over the weekend. There will be much talk in the media of "stiff northerlys" and "arctic blasts" 2) A few places in the north will get snow showers. But on the whole most places will remain dry. Some will grumble at this, but others will maintain that we should keep the faith. 3) There will be much talk of a big midweek snow event. But ultimately it will trend southwards and miss the UK. 4) There will be louder grumbles, but others will say "at least it is still cold". 5) A much bigger low will approach from the west. There will be talk of "battleground scenarios" and "midlands north event" 6) The low will pile through. There will be snow on the leading edge that will produce dramatic pictures on the news. But overall it will soon become a rainy/slushy mess. It will mark the end of the cold spell and people will be sad. 7) Others will say "Doesn't matter. Background signals are supporting an even better cold spell opportunity next month." There is much rejoicing and the chase is resumed" Original post: https://community.netweather.tv/topic/99760-model-output-discussion-colder-but-how-cold-and-for-how-long/?do=findComment&comment=5006917

So my non-technical take on what will happen. Based on nothing more than my direct experiences, plus reading this site. 1) It will get much colder over the weekend. There will be much talk in the media of "stiff northerlys" and "arctic blasts" 2) A few places in the north will get snow showers. But on the whole most places will remain dry. Some will grumble at this, but others will maintain that we should keep the faith. 3) There will be much talk of a big midweek snow event. But ultimately it will trend southwards and miss the UK. 4) There will be louder grumbles, but others will say "at least it is still cold". 5) A much bigger low will approach from the west. There will be talk of "battleground scenarios" and "midlands north event" 6) The low will pile through. There will be snow on the leading edge that will produce dramatic pictures on the news. But overall it will soon become a rainy/slushy mess. It will mark the end of the cold spell and people will be sad. 7) Others will say "Doesn't matter. Background signals are supporting an even better cold spell opportunity next month." There is much rejoicing and the chase is resumed"