Gord

Approaching the 24 hour mark since the rain began now. At least it's been showing signs of breaking up and moving away over the past couple of hours. Very slowly though. I have to go out tonight and I have an 18 month lurcher who won't go out in the rain who'll need a good excercise before we go. This rain is so annoying! We've played tug in the living room and I've hoovered the house as that keeps him interested but it's not going to be enough!

Nah..don't think we'll see storms this way now. We were never meant to anyway. A very wet night and morning in store I reckon. There's been some quite heavy rain already. If the storms were to wander over here, they'd need to join the ever expanding queue of weather systems that were meant to get us in the West Midlands. Still wondering when that snowstorm from last winter will eventually pivot over us like people promised it would!

When I lived in Ohio there would be a pattern with systems like this. Almost routine. 1. Big afternoon storms in sultry air ahead of approaching system. 2. Huge cluster of thunderstorms in the evening hours into the night. As the main precipitation moves in. 3. Cold front comes through sometime around midnight-1am..sometimes with a severe squall line. 4. Rest of night is just plain heavy...and fresher rain behind the cold front with thunder risk completely gone. In theory this system looks similar. However, this isn't Ohio...this is the West Midlands so only number 4 seems certain!

Are we looking towards the Bristol Channel for any potential storms as we have done over the past couple of summers?

Let's hope so! That chart looks mightily close though. Same story as in the winter for us West Midlanders, right on the edge...are we able to squeeze in on the action?

Just coming out of hibernation as I always do if something interesting crops up in the summer... ...so what's all this about lively weather on Friday then?

Yep, dry slotted for now. Bit useless snow falling now anyway, the ground is too warm. Could use a few hours of frosty ground first. This morning's snow was perfectly timed for that. Let's get the skies cleared for a few hours then see where we go. However...I also shall not be staying up!

Just dandruffy bits so far. The first main bit is going to our south. Not convinced the big blob will get here either as there is a dry gap heading straight for the Wolverhampton area directly along the M54 and I fear that may scupper things getting going here this evening.

Light snow just started here.

Good covering of snow first thing this morning. Pretty impressive fall as well. Just as I setting off for work! The main roads were fine though, apart from the Broadway in Dudley...which for some reason always seems unnecessarily icy when a bit of snow has fallen! Soon melted as always though. As far as falling snow days goes, the number must be up there with some of the more classic winters. It's the lying snow days that shows up as poor...obviously to do with the not quite cold enough weather patterns.

Wet snow here...not settling.

Having said all of that, it is now turning to snow here.

Will be marginal here when it starts but pointless anyway as it will be a quick transition to rain. Very full radar. That's a lot of rain to get through. Edit: There we go. Starting off as light rain here anyway it seems.

Looks like you have. We got lucky, it itensified before it go to us and then weakened between Brum and Solihull sadly. However, the nature of these showers means that any of us could still see an impressive squall yet.

Huge snow/hail storm can through here about 20 minutes ago. Was in the car not far from home when it hit. All the main roads were suddenly white over and reduced to a crawl. Sun is out again now but that was a big one.

...and once again the Midlands thread turns into a Peak District show! Fun to read the reports from up there though! Pictures too please!

Snow melting away pretty quickly. A shame when you see it falling and you know it won't last. Theme of this winter.

Moderate snow here too and settling.

If anyone's interested there are showers heading towards our region across Wales and conditions are favourable for them to be wintry. Looks very similar to how the radar looked quite a bit throughout January. Not sure I want to go through all of that again and really can't be bothered but if anyone does want to look out then let us know if you see anything.

Looking at our local forecast for the next few days there's a lot of wintriness in it. The February 2014 me thinks it's the stuff of dreams. However, the January 2015 me just isn't interested. Next...

Going a little against what I said earlier, it would be nice to see snow lie from sunrise to sunset and around to sunrise again just once this late winter/early Spring. Now, before anyone says that's impossible outside of exceptional circumstances...I saw it happen in Ohio in mid-March with temperatures similar to what we might get in an early Spring cold blast....and Columbus, Ohio is more or less on the same latitude as Barcelona. And there's no elevation to speak of either. Managed to keep a few cm on the ground for a day or two there in March. Granted that any sun will get to work on patches of it at that time of year but sun isn't always a given around here! (It actually happened on an April day as well in Columbus...although obviously by then that was quicker to melt there. Although still impressive for that latitude in an area of the world that should be gearing up for it's first real thundery warm up by April! In fact, we had already has one hot thundery episode that April BEFORE the surprise snow came!)

I agree. I don't want a repeat of January. Yes, there were pockets of excitement but each event quickly met it's inevitable doom..over and over again. This late in the winter it has to be all or nothing for me, not half hearted attempts at a cold spell. It's a real shame how this winter has gone. We've had a horrific winter followed by a frsutrating winter...I really can't say in what frame of mind I'll be approaching next winter now.

It's not really fair to criticise those who have had a crap winter and want to moan about it, particularly when you live in the Peak District. In such a varied country like ours, it's fair enough if people want to have a moan about their weather. It's not going to be the same for everywhere. The location of members is a very important tool when interpreting people's posts.

I think she means when compared to forecasted highs and recent conditions.

That is quite staggering! Can believe it though! Funny that the Met Office had us down for a high of 3C today when I looked at the app this morning. Far too low a prediction. The fog must have cleared quicker than they thought. This is the problem with computer generated forecasts though. I do question having computer generated forecasts as the general public ones. A lot of people I know use that app (and the online forecast) and because it's the Met Office, they put a certain amount of trust into it. I suppose it's just too much money to have actual professionals updating the app. Shame really as the MO clearly have some exceptional meteorologists working for them as proven by their forecasts and discussion on other parts of their website and through other media outlets. (I'm working on the assumption that the online and app forecasts are all computer generated as a poster on here once informed me. Please say if I have got that wrong. Have a lot of time for the Met Office and woldn't like to be speaking untruths about them!)