TonyK St Albans
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Posts posted by TonyK St Albans
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On 08/03/2023 at 12:26, bluearmy said:
It’s drizzle because it’s light
any intensity will bring flakes
We’re in the raffle but wouldn’t expect much to lie unless we get an hour of heavy stuff as we approach dusk
Which is exactly what happened.
Fascinating insight to why we get the drizzle. But what's happening when we get snizzle? Is that when the temperature is much lower?
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2 hours ago, m1chaels said:
Would have preferred to watch the snow fall but had to watch the match and couldn't see a lot as so much went onto my glasses...
Were you at WHL? If so, commiserations. My son and grandson were there so share your woe!
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Temperature now rising in St Albans, set to continue overnight, so snow cover will be all gone come daylight.
Oh well, it had its moments.
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5 minutes ago, m1chaels said:
Really enjoyed being linesman on the school football match 4.30 ko on the astro. By the end we would have had to stop anyway as you couldn't see the lines. DDs team won 7-0, I can only imagine how unpleasant it must have been for the girls on the other team.
Ptobabl;y got about the same 2cm we had this morning.
Well done. There's something quite special about being out in steady snow. Trust all that runninmg about toasted you up nicely!
Did the snow settle quicker on the astro than elsewhere? I was in Clarence Park doing my daily walk until about 4.30, by which time the sleet had turned to heavy snow. Was startled by the brilliant white of the games courts erlier where the snow had somehow not thawed whilst everywhere else was just wet.
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8 minutes ago, Methuselah said:
This current spell reminds me of a time in the early 1960s (most likely March or April 1963) when it snowed for a week... Each morning there was a wee bit of snow on the grass verges, and every day it melted. Most frustrating, given the winter that preceded it!
Impresive memory! I vividly recall much of the preceding stuff up to the end of February, but after that, nothing.
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43 minutes ago, TN9 said:
Funny old game the weather its a game of two halves ,north and south
Thanks. That made me chuckle!
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Sleet turned to steady snow about 4pm in St Albans. What's more it's getting steadily heavier andeverything is turning white again.
Mesmerising to watch! Radar suggests it just might bow out with a flourish in about an hour.
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1 hour ago, TonyK St Albans said:
Very light drizzle in St Albans right now, so the Current M/O forecast St Albans looks way too good to be true!
Steady sleet since 1pm suddenly became really heavy snow for a good 10 minutes. Looked like the real deal then - argh - stopped abruptly!
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Very light drizzle in St Albans right now, so the Current M/O forecast St Albans looks way too good to be true!
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St Albans - Settling on the car but not on the ground .so far. I fear it's going to be one of those days when it never quite gets its act together.
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12 minutes ago, harry2045 said:
What are the snow chances looking like for Dunstable tomorrow morning? I sense there may be an 'upgrade' compared to previous local forecasts earlier this evening?
Just checked in to find Met Office has dramatically upgraded snow forecast for St albans area since earlier today. Now expecting snow continuously from 3am Wednesday right through to 1am Thurs, with sleet expected around Wed lunchtime. Dunstable is a few hundred metres higher so could be even more up your way.
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21 minutes ago, snowblind said:
Maxed out at 1.3 today with a slow thaw. Pavements still mostly covered.
Some way short of the forecast high of 4. Been the same all week the forecast highs have been 2 to 3 degrees above the actual highs and the forecast lows 2 or 3 degrees too high as well. This going off the met office site.
Met Office keep revising tomorrow's temp downwards too. All of which has me wondering (ever the optimist!) could it? ... Is it just even possible that tomorrow's rain turns out be the white stuff instead?
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One thing I'm loving about this thaw is the way it's behaving itself. Usually associate thaws with horrible, mucky puddles and dirt everywhere but this one is not so much thawing as shrivelling gradually and gracefully.
Hoping it keeps it up until it's all gone.
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Going by car dashboard, -7 at eastern fringe of St Albans. Lowest ever I've seen it.
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- Popular Post
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8 hours ago, TonyK St Albans said:
I sense certain similarities, though also clear differences, between December 1962 and now. Although fully 60 years have elapsed since then, I still have very vivid recollections of that dramatic winter.
I was living in Hornsey, North London, at the time. From around mid-December '62, the weather turned much colder as well as drier, very similar to what we had the week before the snow arrived on Saturday night..
But whereas the snow has already arrived this time around, in 1962 it did not show up until Boxing Day.
The other potential similarity - sort of - is that the massive High that usually sits over central Asia and Siberia at this time of year instead spread towards Europe and Britain, bringing with it bitingly cold winds (the original Beast from the East if you like).
So when an Atlantic Low arrived over Britain on Boxing Day it not only bumped into the cold air, turning what might have been rain into snow, it also came to a grinding halt, blocked off by the Siberian High. Hence when the snow arrived sometime around midday in North London it continued falling nto the evening and through the night. I remember waking up to an amazing 35cm (14") of snow , but even more astonishing was that by that time the snow had turned to freezing rain, which created a curiously crusty topping to the snow. The house I was living in not only lacked central heating but also draught-proofing so you can imagine my horror when I went to the front door to check out what was happening I was confronted by thick lying snow inside the hallway. The high winds had penetrated the gaps in the front door to such an extent the snow was several inches thick either side of the door jambs.
That Siberian High continued to block off Atlantic systems for the following ten weeks, resulting in not only one of the coldest ever winters on record but also one of the driest.
Whether anything similar will happen this Winter remains to be seen ....
Another striking similarity between December 1962 and now is that once the snow had arrived, it stayed put. The temperature stayed below freezing day after day, However the forecasters seem pretty confident the Atlatic Low will break through this coming weekend and the snow will all be gone by Monday. If so, that is where the similarity will end.
Chances are the forecasters are riight, ... but ... but ... we wait and see!
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5 hours ago, TheOgre said:
Why is there no frost? One thing I’m finding very unusual about this cold spell is since Sunday the lack of frost. Even though it’s -4C right now, other than in trees there’s no frost round here at all!
Wind?
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On 01/12/2022 at 20:48, joggs said:
We could get a Stella winter again.....
Could this not be up there with 62/63 ,78/79,86/87 ect.
It's less likely but.........
Models mightn't have a clue in a very rare event?!?!.
Equally, a few weeks of cold then could go totally mild ..
That's the beauty of weather
I sense certain similarities, though also clear differences, between December 1962 and now. Although fully 60 years have elapsed since then, I still have very vivid recollections of that dramatic winter.
I was living in Hornsey, North London, at the time. From around mid-December '62, the weather turned much colder as well as drier, very similar to what we had the week before the snow arrived on Saturday night..
But whereas the snow has already arrived this time around, in 1962 it did not show up until Boxing Day.
The other potential similarity - sort of - is that the massive High that usually sits over central Asia and Siberia at this time of year instead spread towards Europe and Britain, bringing with it bitingly cold winds (the original Beast from the East if you like).
So when an Atlantic Low arrived over Britain on Boxing Day it not only bumped into the cold air, turning what might have been rain into snow, it also came to a grinding halt, blocked off by the Siberian High. Hence when the snow arrived sometime around midday in North London it continued falling nto the evening and through the night. I remember waking up to an amazing 35cm (14") of snow , but even more astonishing was that by that time the snow had turned to freezing rain, which created a curiously crusty topping to the snow. The house I was living in not only lacked central heating but also draught-proofing so you can imagine my horror when I went to the front door to check out what was happening I was confronted by thick lying snow inside the hallway. The high winds had penetrated the gaps in the front door to such an extent the snow was several inches thick either side of the door jambs.
That Siberian High continued to block off Atlantic systems for the following ten weeks, resulting in not only one of the coldest ever winters on record but also one of the driest.
Whether anything similar will happen this Winter remains to be seen ....
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2 minutes ago, m1chaels said:
I wouldn't have claimed more than 1 (unless I was talking to my DW)
Maybe, tbf was difficult to assess the way it blew around,
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1 minute ago, bluearmy said:
Yesterday was a dump in st albans ? our definitions differ Tony !
Ha! I use the term very loosely!
Maybe just two cms, would you agree?
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2 minutes ago, Lord Grogon said:
Rule I heard is 1 inch of rain = A foot of snow (12 inches).
So 1mm of rain by the same ratio is 1.2cm of snow.Other factors such as ground temps come into play. These tend to work more against lighter precipitation when it comes to settling. So the actual number, given that 1mm per hour isn’t that heavy will probably be a bit less.
I’m a numbers man, but not a meteorologist though, so others on this site may know far more.Thanks for that. Now you mention it, that's what I'd heard too.
Seems to be settling quickly everywhere this time, including on pavements and patios, which yesterday's dump did not succeed in doing.
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Snowing steadily in St Albans now and the MO radar suggests we could be in for an hour or so at the equivalalent rate of around 1mm/hour
Now I remember when I was a kid being told that an inch of snow is the equivalent (roughly) of a tenth of an inch of rain. Don't know how reliable that is but it begs a question.
So, need your help please guys! Does anyone know what 1mm rain per hour would translate into in terms of snow mms?
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SE, London & EA - Weather Discussion
in SE, London and East Anglia Weather Discussion
Posted
St Albans. Looked out the window at 5.45am - nothing but rain. Ditto 7am, so stopped checking until 8.30am only to find heavy snow settling on grass and cars. Started to ease off soon after albeit with the odd flurry, but all gone now (10.30am) so I reckon that will be the last we see of the snow for this winter.