chrisbell-nottheweatherman

Skies clearing here now and with that deeply cold blue look to them; what cloud remains is either whiteish or that pinky-grey that tends to presage snow. Look East forecast was a massive backtrack from the mild ramping of yesterday evening, though they are still suggesting that temps will rise on Sunday which seems a day too early to me even if GFS 06z is correct. Also, as someone else said, they are still uncertain about what exactly will happen, probably wise, but it does still seem that they can't make themselves say that it'll snow. Reminds me of Lister teaching Kryten to call Rimmer a smeghead: "What is he, Kryten?" "He's a smeeeee heeee sir."

Quite a bit of high cloud here, so not much sun, but it's definitely moving east to west which is a good sign!

Hi Claret. It might be worth you asking this question by sending it as a message to one of our forecasters.

Sounds a bit tabloidy to me.

BTW, for an explanation of the jet qustion, see Steve Murr's post in Model Output General Discussion.

Sorry, I'm still new to model reading, and, according to John Holmes and other forecasters here, that detail won't be clear for each little area until a few hours before it's supposed to happen.

Possibly, unless we get something blown in on the Northerly that could develop from Saturday onwards, but that's a big if.

Our most likely slot for snow is from Thursday to Saturday; however, not all models agree.

What I'm curious to know is why I haven't seen mention of this in our Model forum.

For the record, I was wrong in my critisism of the "jet" post from TWO, the GFS for 20th is showing a secondary jet crossing the UK.

Perhaps they think the UKMO model was a bit progressive?

Nah, Jools ain't a dollybird.

Haha - according to Eugene over on Model general discussion, some expert on TWO called "retron" has stated that nothing much will happen south of the Midlands due to being "on the wrong side of the jet". What jet might that be, I wonder?

My objection to both the ITV and Anglia forecasts are the dollybirds that often read it. They often contradict their own charts and wave their hands airily whilst making very vague warblings.

Around the 2005 period, Look East forecasts were being quoted verbatim from MetO using data from Birmingham as I understand it (Norwich Weather Centre having closed). According to Paul B who spoke with WeatherQuest's Jim Bacon on my behalf during the summer, if he or Phil Garner are due to present the forecast, they will as they see fit tweak the MetO data with their own (WeatherQuest) interpretation. Whether this is also the case when Julie presents the forecast I don't know, but given that I think that she receives the forecast info. from WeatherQuest it would seem odd not to. I do think they often give a more accurate forecast in terms of variation within the region than the national forecast can provide, but that they do sometimes tend to underplay more "extreme" weather, such as snow or summer electrical storms. y initial reaction to my family on seeing the forecast was that they are sticking their necks out by downplaying the interpretation. From looking at their wind symbols it appears to me that they unconvinced by the strength and direction of wind even into the start of the weekend - barely any sign of a strong northerly in their projection.

As long as the sea track of any activity isn't too long the higher SSTS may be a good thing in terms of stimulating convection, plus the 850 hPa temps might well get low enough to counteract any effect of higher dewpoints.

What makes you think that?

Yeah, I was joking - they've forgotten that there's a dedicated thread fo the rollercoaster riders, those "upgrade...downgrade...upgrade" types.

Have you been on the Model discussion page recently? For some reason they look to be committing hari-kari over there. Chilly and dry this week with zonality returning next Monday is the theme according to them

Good night all.

I'm pleased to see low 500hPa heights then easterlies for the second half of the week plus cold 850 temps by Friday evening.

I suspect that the poster saw sleet and mistook it for snow.

I'm seeing locations again, but not lists of those in the thread I'm in. EDIT: Just seen Shuggee's post.

Someone has already claimed falling snow in the Luton area, though that seems far-fetched to me. Certainly there was sleet in one of our showers during this morning.

I can't recall if it was in this thread or another, but someone earlier suggested that that low looked almost hurricane-like! Of course, before someone thinks I'm actually suggesting it is, well, of course not. The point is that the lack of consistency on this issue proves yet again what has been stated over and over by the likes of John Holmes here that models that far out do produce unpredictable results.