SP1986

The Met Offices slant on thing is quite bizarre. I wouldn't expect this near the start of the event would cause this much confusion for trained Meteorologists. I can understand that 2-3 days in advance there may be slight confusion, but it's supposedly starting tomorrow.. and somewhere along the line, either there has been mis-communication, or an error in one of the model outputs that has thrown it. I'm not a trained Meteorologist, but to me, it's quite clear for the time period until Friday. Tomorrow we will see a westerly orientated northwesterly entering the region, bringing forth relatively cold returning maritime Arctic air. At first the flow will be too saturated with warm dewpoint temperatures, so any light showers that start to feed into coastal regions will be of rain, for large amounts of the night time period. Unfortunately the showers at this time probably won't have the umph to continue inland, so they'll die away, leaving a clear, breezy night for many. On Thursday it will probably start pretty featureless, in fact some people may question the validity of any snow forecast. From late morning to early lunchtime, we will see showers developing in the Irish sea as a result of warm seas and convection, these light at first will start filtering in over north Merseyside and South Lancashire, getting heavier as the time progesses. Towards the coast these will probably be of a hail/graupel mix, but as they move eastwards towards parts of Gtr Manchester and Northern Cheshire, they will increasingly turn to snow, leaving coverings, although perhaps westernmost areas seeing only short temporary accumulations of snow. Towards the evening, as the wind direction back to more of northwesterly, we may see more general snow fall as a result of showers banding together from showers passing through the north channel (aka Cheshire Gap). This will bring more widespread snow, and possibly higher chance of accumulation on the coast.. perhaps a few cm.. however it will still be temporary covering on these parts.. but further inland, a more substantial, sustained covering of snow possible.

Met office now using the term occasional snow showers in the warning. That in my opinion is not enough to warrant a warning at all

Potential for big north sea storm surge... how can everyone have missed that glaringly obvious thing. North sea coasts could have problems. Here however the 18z has thundersnow or precipitation written all over them

Conditions could well be like Italy's was at the start of their cold spell last week (thundersnow).. of course we won't have snow reaching the second floor of our houses, but it'll be fun I sure.

Id be surprised if we get anything other than hail and graupel on the coast, which will melt away as temperatures will be above 0C

All of this talk of park lakes freezing over ... I cycled past a puddle from.Heswall and it was not frozen. Heswall is the worst place you can live if you like frost as all the cold just drains down off the hill. That said it only reached 3 degrees this afternoon

Currently 0.3C after a minimum of -0.2C. Slight frost

Light frost with a light northerly breeze this morning. Currently 1.2C the coldest of the overnight/morning period. Tonight we will escape frost altogether here...

Looks like there may be a big snow event in eastern Greece though in the medium term. Another big snow event for Athens maybe.

Interesting variation even in a small area of Wirral.Currently 9 degrees here but in Birkenhead it is 4 degrees

Crazy it was clear and 6 degrees minimum here

There either hadn't gone dormant at all or they were growing back already with maturing terminal buds. unreal in December

So mild has it been recently that the foliage of young plants of Sycamore, Ash and Alder are already growing back

Quite bizarre in December. I have an old weather book that stated by mid October much of the country is seeing it's first Autumn frost. how times have changed!

The Arctic is melting but we're still not being tossed into a mini ice age... heaven's above It reached just shy of 15 degrees before the rain came today. the dewpoint was also 14 degrees.. and it felt quite muggy in a mild sense

Well in that area of Southwest Wirral stretching to Hawarden it will only a degree off the record. But that happens relatively frequently in Foehn winds.

17 degrees at Ness today and 16.6 at my station in Heswall.Like an early summer a day in the sunshine

Already 15C in Rhyl thanks to a foehn wind.. I suppose it'll be like that all along the north coast

2.2C here but stable despite clear skies. Mild air will soon infiltrate all layers and overturn this inversion.

0.8C here but some frost around also. I notice stations in the east have plummeted in the last few hours. that would suggest the frigid continental air has reached there overnight... but not quite here

2.1C but clouding over now? anyhow there's a frigid easterly wind that really is raw feeling, and condensation on cars has frozen, but not on all cars.. only white or light coloured ones it would seem.

It's 2.0 here with a notable easterly breeze

IN many cases in a situation like tonights, where cloud clears to clear skies, you can almost always guarantee an air frost, yet when the sky is clear all night, it often struggles to do so.

3 now, crack open the bottle.

Maybe possible on the higher peaks