wellington boot

Very windy here, pretty cold and getting colder. Exciting times. Good news is that the met office have me back to 40 hours of snow (70-90%) and 8 hours of heavy snow... On the other hand, they now have it starting at 5am and 3 dry hours before that, which is curious, given the mass of ppn covering the area currently and out at sea... And yes I read the post about how their symbols work, and I know this is all of limited use, but... I'm excited!

Great isn't it. I think many might not have truly processed the wind element. Not often you get such persistent and strong wind with heavy snow, will be really dramatic where the heavier stuff falls.

Was just joking... People like to catastrophise on here. Looks good in the East and southeast of the region for some inches. Further west, decent chances of at least a layer, and better chances are a day or two away.

Well it's not for me to respond, but I'm seeing some worrying signs here. Originally met had us down for 41 straight hours of light snow, with 6 hours of heavy mixed in, then that improved to 40 hours of snow with 10 hours heavy mixed in. Now sadly we're down to 34 hours of snow with 8 hours heavy. Basically a write off before it's even begun...

Maybe altitude? Or just vagaries of the models. Here in East Sussex it has 0, -2, -2, -1, 1 for Sunday to Thursday. If you have snow on the ground I'd guess it will get colder.

Has the met downgraded their warnings? Or is it just a discrepancy between app and website. Because the website has no red warnings and I'm just outside the amber, but I saw screenshots of red warnings from the app earlier

MO now showing 41 hours continuous snow here (East Sussex, just SE of Tunbridge Wells), with 6 hours of heavy snow from late afternoon Sunday... If pushed, I would probably take that...

Not sure that logic is as flawless as you think it is... Why is it annoying if you are so confident you are right? What's the difference? I'm sure these have been posted and analysed (I've been busy), but NOAA charts are somewhat suggestive of a flow reversal and potentially therefore a colder spell. Looks a little far north however, and given the margins are fine, it doesn't necessarily help us determine the key detail. 8-14 day chart does not necessarily indicate anything overly dramatic or lasting. EC/GFS also mixed. Will be interesting to watch these evolve. Climate Prediction Center - 8-14 Day 500mb Outlook WWW.CPC.NCEP.NOAA.GOV ECMWF/GFS DAY 8-10 MEAN 500MB HEIGHT COMPARISON WWW.METEO.PSU.EDU

I considered that - definitely changing. Look at one of the posts where charts over several days are posted together. There are very obvious features in the long term average line (if that is what it is...) as well as the min and max lines, that simply disappear or change noticeably from one chart to the next, at the same date.

Can you tell me why the red lines change between the charts? I understood these marked long term average, low and high, but they appear to change.

That's the spirit...!

Marginally higher than you and ten minutes away and that matches what we've had here exactly. Unsurprisingly... Just dissolved as it got to us. Suspect it would be snow and settle if intensity was reasonable and consistent, but the band is too broken.

We did disproportionately well for years down here in my part of East Sussex, but we seem to have a snow shield up this year. Started with some snow which put down a layer, but that's mostly gone now as it has turned to sleet, even here at 150m. Still very light also. Looked like plenty headed our way but it turned and the energy surged North just before it got here... Very disappointing with good falls happening so close by up in Surrey.

It is true though isn't it? Cold bias informs or influences a lot of thinking and a lot of posts on here - and I've been part of that. I think a degree of sympathy is warranted. If you have so many people all desperately wanting one outcome, this isn't just to be expected but is absolutely inevitable. But we still ought to aspire to more... In any case, those who watch or post year round will have noticed just how accurately @Tamara - with her marvelously dispassionate, almost robotic style - routinely calls it.

And yet presumably faster also means it arrives earlier when the air is colder, whereas slower means it arrives later when the sun has had the chance to warm the air just enough to be the wrong side of marginal...

*Shudder* Nothing moves and 528 and -5 never get as far even as London... Awful outcome for the SE (as far as it goes...)

I didn't actually offer any statistics. But you are right. I meant to add one other comment, which was that verification over the past month might not match previous stats and they must have been monitoring for much much longer than just the past month...

I'll prob find someone has answered this now, but the key difference is that parameters are different. X axis goes to -20 on one and -30 on the other, and one goes out to 20th Jan while the other goes to 26th...

I really know nothing about this, but I think it is very very unlikely they would switch to using that model, as it currently is, if it's verification stats are so much worse. Hardly have to think about it to reach that conclusion. If that is indeed the beta and will soon be taking over, I would imagine the public version that we currently see is running at lower resolution, or data is being withheld, or something else will change before they'll let that become the OP... A more interesting comparison, therefore, might be too compare v16 vs all other ensemble verification...

Well if you look at that carefully, it's down in phases 1 and 2 by the time the BFTE actually hits.

We have had sleet here for a while, and has arguably become light, wet snow. Not settling and not heavy enough to do so and generate sufficient cooling yet I suppose, but looks like snow as it falls. 10 mins SE of Tunbridge Wells. Unfortunately I don't have anything to measure dew point...

Was driving through Frant 30 mins ago (next hill over) and during some heavy stuff it was very sleety with a few glorious moments where it went quiet and it was suddenly a white cloud. Didn't stay that way and was back to light rain/sleet 5 mins later at home. Plenty of time for those DPs to come down, but we're threading a needle here if we're to get anything notable out of this...

That doesn't show us with -10. More like -5 or -6.

Sounds incredible, will make a note of that. Guess if you have a car you can just drive all night chasing the clear skies if necessary. I have heard of the near monthly activity related to the sun's rotation. Is your focus on the lunar cycle to make sure there is no fun moon to dilute the show?

At least for myself 30+ miles inland I'm hoping for that to wiggle itself down to 150m, then some decent showers overnight. If we can get a covering of snow on the ground around the region to cool the surface layer, and we get some late upgrades on uppers, maybe something can still be squeezed out of this week... What a nuisance that we're scraping the barrel like this given such splendid synoptics at such a perfect time of year!