Jayces

Maybe the lack of much winter excitement has proved too much for some? I'm here in South London listening to the wind gusting quite strongly from Dudley up in Scotland thinking blimey what's Friday going to be like regardless of where the centre of the low end up!

I see a few comparisons to the 87 storm and I just wanted to state the obvious, don't go outside unless absolutely essential. I was 17 and stupid in October 87, lived near Gatwick and was woken up at 3 AM ish by the wind so thought it would be fun to go out. Took my clunky camcorder to film but don't know what happened to the tape. I wandered round for an hour or so, struggled to stay up right much of the time and was hit in the head by a small branch which knocked some sense into me as I decided maybe it wasn't the wisest time to be outside with winds approaching 100 miles an hour. For a teenager it was an amzing experience watching the power of mother nature, the more grown up me though realises I could easily have lot my life, I mean I wandered thtough the local woods in the middle of the night! Sure listeing to the trees fighting the gale was mad but listeing to trees coming down but not seeing them was insane. Seeing the destruction on the way to work the next day was surreal, crossing the level crossing and looking down at number of pine trees laying horizontal across the tracks as far as the eyes could see was hard to describe. I'm sure all here respect the power of mother nature, I know I did a lot more after that. Stay safe everyone.

Would I be correct in understanding that as the impact is already in the high column, a red warning is guaranteed at some point as the storm is defintily going to happen? Or could it remain amber say if it tracks much further South (however unlikely currently)?

My advice after hanging out in the model thread every winter for the last 15 years, if it's general snow you're after, don't look beyond 1 - 2 days ahead and for localised snow no more than a few hours ahead and sometimes minutes! As for a summary, well more of the usual mayhem until the cold arrives, yeah it's likely to get colder somewhere but that's about all we know at the moment I think. When it arrives, for some inexplicable reason we'll start looking for the breakdown. Over the years of model thread watching I'd suggest take some of what you read with a pinch of salt, there may at times be regional bias if a model isn't showing what's hoped for and then it becomes the rubbish model or a rubbish run and claims it doesn't know what it's doing. The output is based on our input and our understanding of how the weather works, we're still learning though so the models aren't perfect. I've often seen one or more models accused of being wrong whilst another model crowned the king only for the latter to fail spectacularly. The verification stats for most of them at short range I believe are in par with one another. Looking beyond 4-5 days is always risky especially if trying to find weather for a particular area. I've not read about the "wandering willy" but probably best to stay home and lock your doors until it passes. If you're a snow fan (most on here are this time of year) just be aware that there are numerous factors required for us to get snow and geographically our little island is poorly placed to get it so it's always a challenge. But when it does happen and is forecast from a long way out (in weather terms) this thread is a fascinating, place to be, a thoroughly enjoyable rollercoaster of emotions with a great community. I hope that helps.

Every year I get sucked in to the excitement on this thread at the slightest hint of the elusive 'S' word and then spend about 4 months on numerous rollercoaster rides chasing holy grail charts 10 days away as runs chop and change every 6 hours, watching depression sink in as a potential solution is dropped followed by elation 24 hours later as an even better one rises from the ashes of the discarded previous days runs. The short wave dramas that appear sometimes only a day or two before the holy grail is supposed to happen, the pattern changes shifting East, West, back East again followed by a cold plunge into Spain! The IMBYism that creeps in as the location wars heat up and the quiet whispers of that ECM. And who can forget the comparisons to 63, ah maybe one day. Every year those experienced heads try to temper excitement with their vast knowledge and experience whilst younger heads excitedly compare the location of a particular isobar from one frame to another. Then there's the delays, get the cold in first, Winter is over, the M4 and the infamous streamers, lamppost watching and who knew there were so many types of snow! I love it, thanks to this community for providing such a great adventure year in year out, hopefully this year will be one for the record books. The good news is that models seem to be picking variations on a theme, dropping it and then picking it up again which I understand is a good sign but it's still 7-10 days away so this year I promise I will not mention it to my kids or anyone else until I see it forecast for the next day!

Well this is a bit crazy, temps above freezing, WSW wind, South London and heavy snow. Had no idea this was forecast so a nice pleasant surprise Hope all enjoy this April shower.

I'd be cautions about taking anything beyond a few days as gospel. As much as I enjoy the sunshine the models a few days ago were showing rising temps from tomorrow onward for me here in London but that's now been delayed until the start of next week. It certainly looks like there will be a milder incursion but I'm sceptical of double digit temps anywhere in the UK let alone large parts. But the weather will as always do what it does so only time will tell.

It's good to see that some did very well on day one of our cold spell. Hopefully it will last a good while and more get in on the action as the week progresses. Can't lie, I like many I'm sure was hoping for more today but the weather will do what the weather does. At least I saw falling snow even if it didn't really settle much.

Yay the snow's arrived here. Not sure it's going to challenge the gritters just yet but we'll see.

Morning campers, a quick scan of recent posts and a peek out of the window and I can understand some of the disappointment here currently. I guess the delay from the original forecasted midnight start to now 7am for here just goes to show how challenging forecasting snow is. Still, chin up, hang in there, it's getting colder and this is only the first day of a period that some are predicting could last into March!

I look forward to being pleasantly surprised in the morning

I blame the weather apps, mine was showing light snow from 2 AM to lunch time Tuesday an hour ago and it's just changed to sleet until 5 AM, a couple of hours of light snow and then dry until tomorrow tonight with a few light flurries here and there

Just came to post the same thing! I know the weather apps are useless (even the METO one) but I've watched all week as it's gone from one single snow flake at midnight to one at 6AM and one at 6 PM and then slowly over time a snowflake for every hour and then two for many morning hours. And then the last day or so the sleet and rain has crept in to the early hours and now just before it all kicks off all the heavy snow (5 hours worth) had been replaced with light snow. Despite knowing how useless the apps are it does seem unusually cruel to downgrade right at the end!

Can so relate, 50 here, what is it about so many of us grown adults that we get so excited about this! Luckily my kids (week young adults now) have continued that tradition and are looking forward to tomorrow

I'm no expert but will give it a bash - Convective I believe happens when there is a big temperature difference over sea (and maybe land) compared to upper air temp, the steeper it is the more it creates clouds that produce snow. Sublimated I had to Google earlier and it's where I think it's so cold that the snow turns into vapour so basically evaporates. Nailed on, well I don't think that's a thing unless you are standing outside and it's actually snowing?

Pretty sure that's how it played out for the 2009 (or was it 2010) Thames Streamer, it had already been snowing heavily for a few hours with several CM of laying snow before they upgraded to red if I remember correctly. Not sure where I am will do as well this time, that was a foot of lying snow which was just nuts but looking forward to hopefully getting a few centimetres from this.

Always enjoy your refreshing down to earth analysis @johnholmes but with many on here often talking about FI being five or so days ahead and sometimes even less than that in these unusual (for us) situations how confident are you that the cold will clear in 9-10 days?

Thanks Nick, looking forward (like everyone here) to seeing some laying snow for a few days hopefully.

With this likely to be a rain to snow event for our area and being overnight with falling temps what's the thinking on how quickly it starts settling or is that just not predictable at this stage? Also I'm guessing the wet pavement under the settling snow is going to freeze during Sunday AM which is related to the ice warnings maybe? Looks like it's going to be great to have some snow but could be dangerous conditions on untreated surfaces.

That's a week away, when this weekend was a week away the real cold was much further North and the talk was of rain for the South. Honestly until it's within the 48 or so hours period it's always very hard especially with this setup to say with any certainty what the end result will be.

It's been often said that every model run provides a realistic plausible outcome based on the initialisation input data and the computing they do after all they've been programmed to produce weather output based on years of experience. So yes the GFS output shouldn't be dismissed but at the same time when every other model and the METO themselves, considered by many to be world leaders in their field are going against what the GFS is saying then surely you have to ask yourself what the chances are that the GFS is correct? We will know in a few days, the most likely scenario is that all models will converge on a middle ground scenario, maybe less cold but I suspect colder than the GFS for sure.

Back up to Cat 4 and suggestions it might even become Cat 5 before starting to weaken!

Just in case anyone else was struggling..... It may well be that the forecasts are mild. Last year, pretty much everyone was cold and blocked. But I have to honestly admit that I think conditions are much better this year. We have hit the solar minimum with very low geomagnetic activity, the NAO has been stable negative, the troposphere completely blocked throughout the year, and the QBO appears to be facing the eastern phase. Finally, we have a tripole in the North Atlantic that favors a negative NAO (also opposite the last 5-6 winters) with heat around Greenland, especially West Greenland as well as colder water at Newfoundland, which is developing again: Last year, SST clearly pointed to a positive NAO with cold water in Greenland - and we have had that trend since the cold winters ended in 2013. We had a western QBO and El Nino. So there are several things that speak for a cold European winter this year, I mean. Last year, they were probably lured into believing the promising forecasts. We also have the prospect of a neutral ENSO, which it immediately looks like. This means that there is likely to be nothing here that matters to Europe. Then it opens up the possibility that the solar energy and the Eastern QBO in combination can have a common and powerful effect on blocking with the Atlantic tripole. I'm pretty optimistic for a cold winter.

Yeah that's pretty much it, interview with Dr Robert Simpson who helped make the Saffir / Simpson scale - https://novalynx.com/store/pc/Simpson-Interview-d53.htm DI: Dr. Simpson, in your opinion, since the Saffir/Simpson scale is an open ended scale, do you think that hurricane windspeeds could become a category 6 or 7? RS: I think it's immaterial. Because when you get up into winds in excess of 155 miles per hour you have enough damage if that extreme wind sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it's going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it's engineered. It may only blow the windows out, but on the other hand, it can actually rupture the stairwells, the elevator wells and twist them, and it's happened in many buildings so that you can't even use the elevators after they've experienced this. So I think that it's immaterial what will happen with winds stronger than 156 miles per hour. That's the reason why we didn't try to go any higher than that anyway. FE beat me to it, I should have Googled quicker

Latest NHC update out, winds 185 MPH, hasn't weakened and expected to remain at that strength for next 12 hours and moving at 5 MPH, not good for the Bahamas. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Dorian