Cal

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?mode=0&ech=6&carte=1 As per usual caveat GFS is being dragged towards the Euro's.

Think it is the small tentative steps the GFS takes to get to the correct solution, i.e. northern blocking, on full blown zonality it does ok generally, however for our shores i would take the UK Met O n ECM to be the correct synoptic solution.

Seen it far to often whereby the GFS plays catch up, ever so slightly over the next few runs does the GFS finally smell the coffee, saying that until the UK MetO comes on board within the reliable time frame then there's always a doubt lingering... Still, the current synoptics shown by most models do offer an improvement to a somewhat relaxing of the past few weeks very wet weather.

Yes now showing some signs of moving north . Cloud to ground lightning now visual.

Distant flashes to the south with long rolling thunder.

Rumbles getting slightly louder with lightning in the distant south.

The storm over Lincoln/Newark areas is a humdinger with the outflow just to the south of here, can hear the odd rumble from it.

Thus explaining the high elavation storms n how far away at night peeps can see them.

Lightning can travel up to 15 miles from the storm, but be seen 25 miles +, these are high elavation storms so thunder maybe minimal, the good stuff is happening over the next 12-24hrs when the cold front crosses !

Frequent intracloud lightning here but no thunder, must be some serious elavation on these cells, things looking good tomorrow for a lot of areas particularly central, northern n eastern areas, rapid destabilisation occuring, looking good for the next few days .

First lightning and thunder of this spell, no rain , just started raining, lol.

Nice high based cell popped up in the last 10mins just south of here

After 6hrs of light n continous snowfall we now have 100% cover, currently moderate snow that is blowing horizontally in the stiff easterly wind.

Patience there, as it starts to pivot yet narrow you could be in for a decent amount more esp on the west side.

Things should pep up over the coming hours however the band will narrow and start to pivot, those lucky enough to be in the sweet spot could see some notable gains by morning, tricky one to call who sees the most but south n west yorks do seem favourable.

Looks like,an area of precip from the Benelux side of the North Sea may affect our area over the next 24hrs or so.

Some light convection kicking of in the last hr around the Humber/E.Coast areas, had a few grains in the wind this morning.

Yes, funny how the GFS has suddenly become the model of choice over the last 48hrs or so

Yea i think i grasp the jist of it Ian, but what gets me (way of topic Mods) is why they all sit on the fence at Exeter? C'mon where's the 'Characters' nowadays? At least someone have the spark to say this is what i think will happen (cold/mild whatever!!) n put some real excitement into forecasting regardless!

So basically a dryish continental feed, apart from one or two localised areas that may see a slight dusting, however things may get interesting a little later on towards the following weekend with copious amounts of snow encroaching fron the southwest with some places receiving over a mm of snow, emergencey protocols have been put in place, just in case scenario, whereby some areas receive more than 3mm of precipitation, lol (last paragraph made up !)

Why regard the GFS at such a range when we know it is woefull modelling a particular set up as this? Having watched the GFS over the last week or so it really has been Dog SH*T at handling troughing over the UK with High pressure to the East, only slowly but surely (run by run) has it come on board with the Euro models, yes the GEFS Means have been far better n as far as i can gather this is what we should be looking at in the meduim term, but as always most seem to be caught up in every intermodel run... why i dont know!

Light dusting here from a rogue shower.

I think in fairness Dave it didn't happen because the P.V. over the Eastern side of Canada was simply too strong, the thermal gradient coupled with the Atlantic made things difficult to call, i do see a Greenie high but not till mid month onwards and it maybe little to late, the rebound effect from the SSW could well signal we have a nice warm spring during late Mar/Apr to go with.

Highly amplified over the next two weeks or so, little in the short term wrt to snow n cold, but, n a big but, things looking juicy teleconnectively from the 10th onwards.

Now 100% snow, been a superb watch everyone, loved the way it has oscillated from snow to ice pellets to rain/snow/pellets n now back to snow!