Thundery wintry showers

When I saw the ECMWF T+240 chart, it reminded me of the chart for 2 March 1995, but displaced further north: With the setup being further north, though, it probably wouldn't be as snowy as the early part of March 1995. I could see us getting a short-lived north-westerly out of that setup. Still, the similarity shows that there is some potential for the eventual transition to a more westerly type to feature some colder incursions from the north-west or north. A setup like 5-11 February 1999 would be possible were the high to the east of Canada to move into the North Atlantic and extend towards Greenland.

Surprisingly, started off as light snow in Lincoln and then turned to sleet as it got heavier, presumably because although the air temperature dropped from around 3.5 to 2.6, the dew point crept up. The heaviest stuff is still to the west though.

Staying at my parents' in Knaresborough at present, there's been some sleet and wet snow and the temperature fell swiftly from 8C to 1C, but as far as I can see none of it has accumulated on the ground.

Just recalled another anecdote, my father was working near the west coast of Scotland near Helensburgh in January 1984 and he says that it was mainly wet snow where he was, but that there was deep snow just a little way inland, which would be consistent with the "westerly" snowfalls midmonth.

January 1984 was exceptionally cold over eastern Canada and scoops of that cold air kept crossing the North Atlantic to the British Isles. It was a fairly mild month in the south where there were more incursions of tropical maritime air and the cold polar maritime air had to cross a larger expanse of ocean, but the north stayed mostly under the polar maritime air which was often cold enough to produce snow rather than rain or sleet. As a result, the south had a high frequency of sleet/snow falling but not much on the ground, while from the north Midlands northwards and on high ground further south both falling and lying snow were frequent. Northern Ireland and Scotland were particularly snowy. It was also notable for unusually high thundery activity in many parts of the country. RAF Waddington near Lincoln reported thunderstorms with snow on the 3rd and 26th. Thundersnow also occurred quite widely around the 13th-15th. The snowiest spell of the month was generally the 22nd-25th which had a setup quite similar to that of 5-7 February 1996. A northerly outbreak on 19 January resulted in a pool of cold air settling over the British Isles, giving some very low minima in Scotland, and then frontal systems pushed in from the west and collided with the cold air, giving heavy snow generally from the north Midlands northwards. Snow showers followed behind in the westerly flow on the 25th. Sunshine was well above normal towards the south-east of the UK, but near normal in most other regions. I'm guessing that this might be because the SE didn't see many showers in the westerly & north-westerly incursions, and frontal systems often passed through overnight. In recent years I thought of mid to late January 2015 as a watered down version of the same kind of setup. There have been other approaches - the third weel of January 2018 and around 11 February 2018, and in late January 2019, but the attempts in January & February 2020 generally disappointed at low levels. As for the rest of winter 1983/84, there was indeed a cold snap around 10-13 December 1983, via a northerly outbreak followed by frontal systems taking a while to clear the cold air mass. February 1984 also had a chilly-ish north-westerly around the 6th-8th, though I don't think lying snow was widespread from that, even in the north. Cold weather in late February and March 1984 came about via easterlies.

Thanks for all your work over the years Michael. My interest in meteorology was helped somewhat around the period 1995-2002 by regularly watching the BBC weather forecasts, and you were among my favourite BBC forecasters, and probably the most famous one with the general public. Enjoy your retirement and I hope your health holds up.

Turning sleety also here in Lincoln.

I thought there was a chance of some snow from this band in Lincoln but it's arced around to the south and it's now 2.4C at the University so this front looks like being a bust for here. I did get snow unexpectedly this morning though.

Unexpected snow showers and slight dusting in Lincoln this morning, it looks like it's settled more readily in the higher parts of the city than where I am, but still a covering on some surfaces.

A bit frustrating over the past couple of hours, a steady stream of snow showers just to the east of here, with just light flurries, temperature below 1C so if we caught the heavier stuff it would probably settle.

Lying snow now at Marsden, South Shields judging by Neil Bradshaw's webcam.

A slight dusting accumulated on the grass and cars over the past 10-15 minutes as the temperature fell further to 0.8C.

Still not quite cold enough to settle yet (1.2C) but some proper fluttery snow in the last 10 minutes.

I saw a brief coating of snow on Neil Bradshaw's webcam at South Shields 10-20 minutes ago, it's gone now, but it's close to getting cold enough for lying snow right near the coast now.

Rain for most of the day in Lincoln, but turning sleety now, some flakes blowing about in the wind, temperature at the University down to 1.9C. It's one of those where the precipitation is likely to die back to the coast before it gets cold enough for lying snow, but there could be some wet snow before that possibly.

Lincoln has been a bit too far east, it's been rain and between 3 and 5C for most of the day today.

Yes, here we go - temperature at South Shields has fallen as low as 3.1C, with 41mph NE wind and 65mph gusts and it looks pretty wild on that webcam.

Although now living down in Lincoln, I'm monitoring Neil Bradshaw's weather station in South Shields (my old home town). http://www.southshields-weather.co.uk/Today's_weather.htm There was wet snow there at one point with the temperature at 1.1C, then the temperature swiftly rose to 5.5-6.0C, seemingly more due to the warm sector associated with the eye of the low than the wind off the sea (he's been recording northerlies, roughly parallel to the coastline). But the wind has steadily got up and his latest gust is 56mph, with a mean wind speed of 36mph. And that's before the imminent NNE wind sets in... I'm not even sure if his weather station will be fully intact tomorrow morning, I think there could be gusts to 80mph+. I had a bit of wet snow here in Lincoln for a time incidentally, which brought the temperature down to 1.6C, but it then turned back to rain and cleared away.

It's turning back to rain now, temperature at the University fell to 1.6C earlier but is now up to 2.1C, with higher humidity indicating that the dew point has gone up quite a bit.

Some sleet in Lincoln at present, turned briefly to wet snow earlier, temperature at the University fell from 3.9C to 1.8C.

Interesting that you found this in a completely different area of the country. In Cleadon in South Tyneside I remember the same: December 2002 was an exceptionally dull month there but Christmas Day was a one-off sunny day, I remember some patchy low cloud but also plenty of sun breaking through.

What stands out for me about September & October 1985 was the exceptionally warm southerly centred on 1 October, which was beaten only in 2011. In some parts of the country 1 October was the warmest day of the year. I get an impression that September 1985 was a NW-SE split month: at Waddington it was warm and dry but with just average sunshine, and the north-west was dull and wet. October 1985 was more widely both drier and sunnier than average - indeed in the Met Office's UK rainfall series only October 2016 has subsequently been drier. I'd certainly say 1985 stands out as an autumn with more than its fair share of noteworthy weather events, particularly from the back end of September onwards.

I immediately thought of 2001/02 when I saw this thread's title - that one particularly sticks out for me. I was in Cleadon in South Tyneside then and there was also about 3cm of lying snow, so it was as bright as it can get at that time of year. I remember that New Year's Eve 2008 was overcast where I was (though New Year's Day 2009 was indeed sunny), so sunshine must have been variable around the country. Yes, it's very hard to think of other examples. I can think of plenty of examples of sunny spells at the start of January and end of December, including for instance 1-3 January 1995 and the period 25-30 December 2000 (apart from just the one cloudier day on the 28th), 28-30 December 2003 and 28-30 December 2014, but the ones that I experienced all avoided straddling 31 December/1 January apart from the 2001/02 instance.

I just checked the stats for Waddington near Lincoln and the end of November 1985 was very snowy around these parts, a fall of 7cm for the morning of 27 November and then 4 consecutive mornings with lying snow, although most of it had melted by the 30th, presumably because of the milder air coming in. It was the coldest November in a record from 1949, just beating 1965 and 1993. Lancaster had three days of lying snow from that spell as well, presumably due to snow showers moving in off the Irish Sea in the north-westerly on the 27th and 28th. There were also exceptionally low temperatures in parts of Scotland. The switch-around from cold to warm around the turn of the month was particularly extreme. It was also a very sunny month in many parts of the country. However, I was too young to have any memories of it.

Yes I measured 17cm of level snow on the evening of 1 March 2018 in Exeter (I couldn't measure the snow depth on the 2nd because of the ice storm overnight). It's amusing to think that despite having lived in several relatively snowy areas of the UK, the deepest snow depth that I've measured where I lived since I started taking records in 1993 was in Exeter, but that's one of the quirks of Exeter's climate: mild, but prone to occasional extreme snowstorms. I think around Hull has been extremely unlucky for snow in recent years. RAF Waddington near Lincoln had 13 consecutive days of snow cover in January 2013, 7 days of lying snow in the winter of 2014/15, and picked up a fair amount of snow in the easterlies of February & March 2018 (though not as much as Exeter) and there were several days of lying snow from the February 2021 easterlies albeit not more than 2-3cm. Perhaps surprisingly, around these parts winter thunderstorms are about as common as they are in Exeter on average. I agree that I'd probably find the winters in Surrey pretty boring (and often more so than those of Exeter). I admit I was quite happy to be in Exeter during the very westerly winter of 2019/20 as well as the aforementioned 2017/18, as there wasn't really much snow in other parts of the UK (so living in Exeter I didn't miss out on much), and Exeter had a fair amount of dramatic Atlantic-driven weather including 3 days of thunder and several days with wintry showers in February. I found the winter of 2020/21 very frustrating there though, and I think it was especially last winter when I lost interest to some extent.