Stratos Ferric

Well, here's a surprise, and not an afternoon to have 280 or so German horses attached to your rear axle when most of the 1.5 tonnes of German precision engineering is at the other end. Had I not had an important conference call to get home for, spending 6 minutes covering 200m horizontal and 40m vertical would have been at least as amusing for me as it was for the chav behind me in Honda Chavette. Nor was it amusing coming down the hill to my house to find the road going 90 right and the car continuing 180 straight on: fortunately my not so near neighbours provide a decent embankment on their track so the car serenely glided to a stop about 12" from a £2000 bill for a new front end. Anyway, spectacular and unexpected afternoon of moderate and heavy showers here in Vale of Stratosdaleshire. Most definitely the biggest snowfall in eight winters up here on the moor, and all in no more than an hour. Peak intensity was around 40-50 on the Stratosscale: again, about as high as I can recall and a reflection of big feathery flakes (around 3cm at one point) falling thick and fast. Net result has been 5cm of snow, which rather spoils the flirty winter record to date which has been all glimpses of thigh flesh but no subsequent action. Piccies below are, respectively - the view N towards Simon's Seat - view NW across Skipton and towards Ingleborough - the view E across my field - 5cm on the patio - the view W

Kind of begs the question what someone from Surrey is doing in Wibsey Garden Suburb (note for locals, the "Garden Suburb" is oft excluded from the name on signs in the area, maps, and all other offical records. However, even in the glorious city centre it is snowing heavily: on Atmos's patent scale it is, unbelievably, up at about 50. Very large flakes coming down thick and fast, and starting to settle on the pavements after only 5 minutes. Have to say, this wasn't forecast, but looking at radar there's a definite convergence across the central belt.

I wouldn't have thought it possible for the average snow per snow day to have fallen any lower here in Stratosshire, but it has. This afternoon, from all but clear skies, we had at least 100 or so snowflakes faffing around in the wind. The most snowless unwarm snowy winter on record continues with reckless abandon.

Back edge rain turned to sleet lower down in Stratos Vale, and snow up on the moor here. Only light and brief, and certainly not enought to settle. Quite rapid drop in temperature, 2C or so in around 15 mins.

...and the Enforcer. Perhaps Bristol, Abingdon and Donny should be "twinned"

Moderate snizzle continues. Looks like someone's sprinkled wet sugar over the lawn, albeit with the careful hand of one who knows it's already gone out of fashion. At this rate we'll have enough for a snowball come May. I don't think there has ever been a winter with so many snow events and so little to show for it.

I've heard that 12" would be an unofficial 4 on the SATSIGS scale. Continuing the weeks theme of endless variatins of snow; today we have had moderately heavy wet snow, soft hail, ice pellets, and now what can only be described as heavy snizzle. Not showing up on the MO radar. Maybe it's an iranian piloted cloud?

I think you'll find it was actually, certainly on all the regional forecasts last night on BBC. Heavy snow here in Stratosland this morning. It wasn't snowing at 0550 when I was chasing an errant cat around. By 0730 it was snowing heavily, large, wet flakes. Settled to <1cm, though thawed now on all surfaces bar the grass.

The pattern of the winter continues in NW Stratosshire: snow overnight but no more than a dusting really: certainly not enough to stick a ruler into on firm surfaces - 5mm perhaps. Raining since 9.

Very true. Snowing lightly (need one of those yet to be developed new words for very very very light snow which is more than just random grains blowing around) at Stratos Towers this morning. Raining down in the valley at 300' or so. Sleeting on the outskirts of Bruddersfaxburywike at around 700', and raining in the centre of the metropolis. A dusting on the some of the moors to the north this morning, though very strange how some had it and others didn't. Nothing settled below about 1000' anywhere though. To paraphrase a great British leader: Never, in the field of all human winters, have so many snow days delivered so little snow for so much potential.

Well, now have fully fledged snow. Big flakes, driven on by a gusty breeze, and after about a couple of minutes of feathery excitement there's some white splodges on the car boot. Qualifies as a bit of a dumping by recent standards. Still, if this keeps up all night there should be a genuine sprinkling by morning.

This is a first: Skipton has disappeared. It's snowing somewhere: either that or the mother father and grand daddy of all holes has just opened up...sleet turning now to snow: gloopy big flakes.

It's now all but snowing here - and about time too. Wet, but undeniably nearly everything landing on the velux is a complete snowflake. About 90% of drops, and about 80-90% formed. Hell, it's nearly snowing, and in February too. Wooo

Two or three beefy showers in West Yorks this evening. Sleet here in Stratosdale, about 10% at best (20% of drops about 50% formed), though driving home from Bradersfax came through a spell of about 50% (100% of drops about 50% complete). Currently another heavy shower, though this one is <5%. Have to say I surprised by the stready stream of showers coming across Yorkshire: there's undoubtedly a convergence zone here at present, just enough to maintain uplift and some heavy showers. I expect snow topped moors in the morning.

One brief but heavy shower with implausibly large raindrops (always a sign of something unusual aloft) at around 2145h. About 2% sleet content (one in ten drops about 1/5 frozen); impossible to tell whether melting hail or melting snow, though the drop size would actually suggest the former.

Aah, that'll be the one that gave snow at Dunkeswell I suspect.

I guess that would be expected though if one assumes the lack of rain has to indicate HP dominating. Are there any instances of dry yet windy winters?

And here it is...the snizzle blizzard: think we need a word for this one, snizzard? ...not it's not a plague of dung flies Os!

I thought it was getting misty: bugger me, on closer inspection it's very very heavy snow grains, i.e. snizzle: still, it's snow - with usual riser...but not as we used to know it Jim... P.S. As I am under the green blob on Mr Murr's very slow download radar pic - I gave up in the end - it pleases me to report the radar is working well: snow intensity on the Stratos patent scale is now 1.25. and we now have what I thkink could quite legitimately be described as very light snow by those of a certain age, or a blizzard for those who don't remember anything before 1991. I may have to take a piccy...

Great call, very drole. No: CG (Gordon) Smith. Wrote several tomes on climate. Also very active in the intelligence corps during WWII. Quite a character.

That is a good stat / measure, and reinforces my point from a few pages back that this is a surprisingly unwintry winter (very much a "wonter") given the lack of warmth. Interestingly enough my climate tutor at college, one of the country's pre-eminent climatologists at the time and the author of some works that are still seminal, used to observe, in stentorian tones, that regarding long range trends "you know, all my years of experience tell me only one thing: they average out in the end". I tend to agree with this. It's only two years (or is it three) since the national press were capmed in the Kent Weald reporting unprecedented floods: now there's a thread here chuntering on about water shortages in the SE. If you think about it what CG said MUST be more or less true. We have climate that changes only slowly: therefore, any short-term weather deviation away from the climatic norm shoud be corrected downstream by something opposite. Underneath this, of course, is a process of slow change - currently one of warming, but the short term correction will hold more strength than the long term change until, and unless, there is dramatic short-term forcing. Where I do agree with your point is that one cannot simply assume that because one season, or one month, has one extreme, the next will have the opposite. The correction is more random than that, but it will correct.

Mulling on this, and I'm quite sure the OED hasn't had to think about this, it's a case of singular snow rather than the normal plural snow... Very much a case of heavy no with a strange trace of snow added in. What's the word for snow mixed with no? Snonow? Then you could have Snownono...

Amazingly enough it's snowing in Bradford, or, to paraphrase the immortal lines from Star Trek "it's snow, Jim, but not as we know it". I think it's actually just the law of large numbers. It's been cloudy for so darn long that a few random molecules of water have finally banged into each other in sufficient number, and whilst it's very cold (-4C at 12h locally), to produce something which, if there were several trillion others, might constitute a very light snow shower. No doubt though, under the single catch-all word we have at our disposal, it is snow.

I saw lying snow on Saturday and Sunday, above about, I guess, 1800' on a single hill visible from the GNER somewhere in the Borders. Haven't bothered to check it yet, which is careless of me given that this was a remarkable sight to behold: snow, in the UK, in January!

Are you quite sure it isn't mineral salt leaching out of evaporating groundwater in the unseasonable warmth? If I look through by Carl Zeiss binoculars I can see distant white blobs as well: these ones keep moving around though.